Quoth I, “The only thing that boggles my mind is this: Why does the web site employ a trademark symbol? LOVE™? Does this site have an additional, acronymical meaning for the word? Will we find out more when the marketing campaign enters its next phase? Will there be a next phase?”

The answer? Yes, there is a phase two, as the campaign’s PR manager let me know quite promptly by email. (Thank you for that!) Phase One, the unbranded phrase, ran from April 16 through April 20. The branded phase was rolled out on April 20. I’m only getting around to posting about it now, because I am a slug. Maybe this is old news to you, I don’t know. On the off-chance it isn’t, this:

The website LetLoveHeal.com has sprouted identifying features! There’s a logo and a blurb on the front page now. The logo belongs to Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, and the blurb runs thusly:

Love. It makes hearts grow fonder, blood move faster, and creates that never-want-to-live-without-it feeling for everyone it encounters. Surprisingly, love also has an unmistakable therapeutic power. It has been scientifically proven to aid healing and help improve the lives of people, animals, and plants alike. And with the help of our experienced doctors and caring staff, it’s now making its way into the hearts of every patient at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers.

And there’s swag! As I drove down Foothills today, I was passed by a pick-up truck with the LOVE™ HEALS logo on the back. Street teams have been passing out magnets like that one and T-shirts too.

The cynically minded will want to know, “So what are they selling?” And they will look all over the LetLoveHeal.com site for a swag shop or similar. In vain! for there is none. All they are “selling” is the message. As Beth Hardy of Weise Communiciations told me in her kind email (which I pray she will forgive my quoting),

Because cancer touches nearly everyone in some form or fashion, RMCC developed this campaign to try and reach out to as many people as possible and help spread the message that compassion, kindness, friendship and love can truly help an individual’s quality of survival.

As they say on LiveJournal and on many blog comment communities, “Quoted for truth.” ‘Cause it is. True, I mean. I should know, being a cancer survivor myself. Clearly, chemotherapy had a lot to do with my survival, but it’s no insult to the skilled oncologists, the caring RNs, and veritable army of blood donors to say that love – expressed via hugs, kisses, hospital visits, prayers, and huge tangles of Mardi Gras beads tossed off the floats of the Krewe of Thoth – was also indispensable.

So, good on RMCC. It’s a message worth spreading, and I’m pleased to know whom to thank for it.

(Also, the trademark thing? Where it looks like someone’s trying to trademark the word LOVE? Holds true on the RMCC logo as well: “ROCKY MOUNTAIN™ CANCER CENTERS”. Apparently, when you’re trademarking a logo, it just looks better to put the TM at the end of the top line where the words are bigger. And I’m just an overly literal-minded English major doing that literal-minded English major thing that I do when I go, “Huh? You’re trademarking the Rocky Mountains? All of them?” So you can just ignore me there.)