Tag Archive: marketing

Jewish Marketing II: Concert Promotion

There used to be a time in which simply hearing about or seeing an advertisment for a Jewish Music Concert was an exciting event! These concerts didn’t just happen ever second… Zoom forward some good two or three decades and you’ll find a plethora of concerts advertised all over the country! There are now Jewish Music Stars performing not just in The Catskills but also on Cruises, Harbor Boats, at Six Flags and at other “out of the box venues.” And so, it’s only fitting that we begin to see a need to better promote these concerts. Hence, it’s interesting to have seen that the latest Ohel Concert, which has featured singers such as MBD, Ohad, and Avraham Fried, decided to do a spin-off of the popular Geico Ads. I must admit, I do not live in America, and haven’t had a chance to see these effective spots. That said, I’d still assume that there had to be a certain percentage of the mostly Orthodox crowd that had seen these Geico spots, and would get a “kick out of it” by seeing Ohel spoof the Geico set of commercials…

THE ORIGINAL GEICO COMMERCIAL

THE OHEL CONCERT VERSION

November 25, 2010 | Tags: branding, Jewish Music, marketing, non profit | 1 Comment

Jewish Marketing: Tallking Babies!

The use of animated babies who talk or dance in a commercial, let alone an advertising spot is not new. In fact, a quick internet search will lead you to this Wikipedia page. A short perusal of that page will indeed reveal how various television programs or commercials have used babies to sell a product, raise a programs ratings, etc.
Let’s face! Babies are cute and can help move anything from water on up!
Indeed, recently, two baby ads have taken the world by storm. The first such ad, has received several million hits on YouTube and was originally commissioned as a commercial for Evian Water:

Following the smashing success of this campaign, Etrade.com used babies in their Super Bowl spot no less (see below)!! I’d imagine that they figured that by using babies, they’d be able to win over the millions of women that tune into this sporting event, in a simple quest to watch the entertaining commercials.

The above commercial, received much publicity! In fact, the maligned actress, Lindsay Lohan sued Etrade for a whopping 100 million dollars over the fact that she (and pretty much only she…) saw this add at another attempt to further soil her reputation.

However, what caught my eye, is that the Jewish world, in particular the Orthodox world, has now turned to the use of a talking baby to market the latest Jewish Chinese Auction. With the economy still in the slumps, trying to convince people to attend these fundraising events are getting seemingly increasingly more difficult. One can no longer simply place an add in The Jewish Press or Mishpacha Magazine and assume people will flock to the event! And so, A.T.I.M.E. has created a cute and funny campaign encouraging parents to attend their particular auction!

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments section below what you think…Do you think it’s about time that Jewish organizations are using such popular methods to publicize their events? Or would you rather they continue to try and let the general public know of these fundraisers through more heimishe methods!

Also feel free to check out my thoughts on Summer Branding in Israel here!

August 2, 2010 | Tags: branding, marketing, tzedakah | 4 Comments

Educating the iGeneration: Hundreds of High Quality Free Fonts!

Several months ago I was asked to give a presentation at the KISHOR SOCIAL MEDIA CONFERENCE held in Jerusalem, Israel. My particular topic was, The Facts: What Your Students are Doing with Social Media. And so, since the presentation I have found myself being asked in various venues for my insights as to how we can attempt to reach and inspire the iGeneration. The answer is not a simple one. If however we are to start somewhere, I believe the answer lies in how we present our ABC’s! Allow me to explain…

Let’s be honest.

Being a teacher has never been a simple walk in the park! Today, students readily have the latest gadget available to them at home…and even in school. For instance, see the caption to this picture taken by an Administrator at a well known Yeshiva High School in New York. It’s no surprise that one may postulate that it’s arguably harder than ever before to get a student to look at a source sheet or a text book. After all, as the New York Times reported here, children ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day in front of some sort of a screen, including but not limited to: computer, television, and their very own smartphone. Moreover, the new Pew Internet Report on Teens & Mobile Phones has documented that 1 in 3 teens sends more than 100 texts a day!

As the Overseas Director of Bnot Torah/Sharfman’s, I find myself particularly aware of this phenomenon. It is not surprising to me to read that it has been documented just how much girls are more voracious texters than boys. After all, the Talmud (Kiddushin 49b) related to us all many years ago, that regardless of the means of communication, women “speak” a lot more than their male counterparts.

All things considered, in today’s day and age it is even possible for a student to physically sit in a classroom but not really be “in class?” You see, there are teenagers who can text for hours on end, while seemingly sitting in the classroom “listening” to the teacher. In actuality, they have their cell phone neatly situated behind their back and are sending virtual notes to their friend across the room or in another classroom. Indeed, it has been reported that 64% of teens with cell phones have texted in class and 58% of teens whose school bans phones have texted in class! Furthermore, prior to the concept of SMS or texting, if a teacher managed to intercept a note being passed in a classroom, one might have been able to make sense of the words and discern what was silently taking place in your classroom. Nowadays however, a teacher needs a Dictionary of Texting Terms so that he/she can decipher such abbreviations as OMG, DMC, or LOL

All in all, I believe that if a teacher or lecturer is using source sheets or has prepared a presentation for the class to view as a Power Point Presentation or wants to engage the classroom utilizing a SMART Board, one of the easiest, quickest, and most cost effective ways that you can captivate your audience (other than saying that whomever comes to our school receives an iPad and MacBook as this University did to incoming freshman!) is through the use of relevant typography. Indeed, as proven here and here certain fonts can convey to the brain a wide array of emotions. In so doing, you aren’t just putting words in front of your audience. Rather, you are forever aided by the eternal appearance of each and every letter that exudes from the page. Indeed, I found a font that the letters from A to Z very much appeared like a Krembo. I used this font for a class entitled, Eating is Tikkun, in which we learn about some of the spiritual activities that takes place when we eat. That said, from the moment my students saw the font they remarked, “hey that kinda looks like a Krembo!” In so doing, the class began with the students doing the engaging…and not the teacher, and by extension, I found that they were much more captivated to learn about the topic.

Just as the companies that market their gadget are keenly aware of branding and font usage, we the educators of the iGeneration, should consider means (I believe I am merely presenting one) in which we can utilize similar methods and techniques to maximize the learning experience.

And yet, procuring a database of such high quality fonts may come with an expensive price tag. A company wanting to sell you the latest tech-toy may have such finances, but certainly in the current recession, I am not aware of any school or educator who has extra money laying around to invest in additional fonts. Accordingly, while there are still some people who associate Twitter, as being a website that informs you what your friend had for breakfast, there are millions of people who realize that if you follow the right Twitter Accounts, it can and is an effective tool to come across valuable information in a short amount of time. In light of the above, thanks to Twitter, I have managed to slowly collect, over the past several months, hundreds of high quality fonts that will enable you to build and enhance your branding, or strengthen the words in your presentations, classes, flyers, essays, and so on and so forth. Best of all, they are all FREE!!

To access the fonts simply click on any of the 14 images found below and you will be directed to the appropriate link.

I’d appreciate hearing from you in the Comment Section (found all the way at the bottom) as to other methods you have tried/considered using to teach and reach the iGeneration.

Enjoy!