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Serving It Up
The range of products aimed at the Jewish market is enormous. Not all are expensive. Some are just plain cute, including greeting cards, wooden play menorot,
kosher baking videos and coffee mug and sweatshirts with Yiddish sayings. All products except video courtesy of Contemporary Designs.
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ation Americans, are more comfort-
able with their Jewishness," she says.
Ethnic target marketing is on the
increase across the board — for all eth-
nic groups. Nationally, the number
one ethnic market is black, followed
by Hispanic. Although the numbers
are vastly smaller, the Jewish mar-
ket is pegged as number three.
How easy is it to find America's
Jews? Consider the following: 80 to
90 percent of the U.S. Jewish popu-
lation lives in 12 major cities, Mr.
Koch says. The Jewish media, from
long-established local newspapers to
several new slick, colorful national
magazines, provide attractive adver-
tising vehicles. Other ways to reach
this market are direct mail, catalogs,
radio and cable TV.
Studies that examine per capita in-
come, education level and lifestyle
(the number of hardcover books
bought, the number of trips taken)
show American Jews to be upscale,
highly professional-managerial and
highly health-care oriented.
Food For Thought
In all ethnic target marketing, the
focus is on food. The reason? Food is
the single most significantly different
44 area among ethnic groups. For the re-
tailer, it means a myriad of new prod-
ucts for already crowded shelves.
Companies perceive the Jewish
market as interested in three (some-
times overlapping) food items:
gourmet foods, convenience foods,
healthy foods.
Jews are thought of as brand loyal
but are also willing to try new prod-
ucts, Mr. Koch says. "They were the
first to gravitate to frozen foods. They
could grasp the concept and pay the
price. And because of health consid-
erations, they purchase a lot of spe-
cial diet — low-fat, low-salt, etc. —
items."
Kosher is the key word. Even
though the majority of Jews do not
keep kosher — and, in fact, about 60
percent of the some 4 to 5 million peo-
ple who buy kosher products are not
Jewish — in manufacturers' minds the
two are synonymous.
Ten years ago, by one estimate, few-
er than 10,000 kosher products could
be found in the marketplace. Now,
23,200 products have some sort of
kosher certification. Indeed, the
kosher certification business itself
is booming, with more than 200 com-
panies nationally offering a hehsher.
The upswing in kosher foods takes
two directions. One is the increasing
number of national companies mak-
ing their products kosher. The second
direction — and the future of the field,
some say — is the increasing number
of small companies producing kosher
products.
By way of comparison, there's an
estimated $2 billion worth of food
products specifically aimed at the
kosher market versus $30 billion
worth of kosher food products from
national companies. The experts dis-
agree over how hard national com-
panies are trying to reach Jewish
consumers.
"It's a blip on the picture" compared
to efforts aimed at other, potentially
more profitable ethnic markets, says
Jeff Metzger, publisher of Food World,
a trade paper covering the mid-At-
lantic area. The goal of such market-
ing is to reach the broadest audience,
which is exactly what has been
achieved with, for example, Mexican
food.
It has been so successfully "Amer-
icanized" that last year salsa outsold
ketchup. The only "Jewish" food that
even comes close is the bagel, which
has entered mainstream America
thanks to the marketing efforts of
Lender's Bagels.
Richard Cohen, president of the
New York City-based Richard Cohen
Associates, a public relations and ad-
vertising agency specializing in the
Jewish market, says the target of
such marketing is really upscale au-
diences which includes Jews who, be-
cause of the Jewish media, are readily
reachable.
"If you wanted to reach the (up-
scale) Episcopalian audience, how
would you go about it? It's hard to
identify them," he says.
But Leah David believes different-
ly, arguing that more national com-
panies are becoming kosher because
the cost is quickly amortized. Some
manufacturers even go out of their
way to reach Jewish consumers, be-
coming "Jewish brands" because of
advertising in the Jewish media, says
Ms. David, president of SHE Adver-
tising Inc., a New York City agency.
Several months ago, because of the
demand, SHE started an in-store
kosher food sampling service.
Maxwell House coffee is an obvious
example of a "Jewish brand," Ms.
David says. Others are Hellmann's
mayonnaise and Heinz ketchup —
rather than their competitors, Kraft's
mayonnaise and Hunt's ketchup, al-
though all four products are kosher.
Recent articles in business magazines
also have highlighted aggressive cam-
paigns by General Mills' Betty Crock-
er division and Kraft's Breyers ice
cream to target Jewish consumers.
Still, Ms. David does acknowledge
that many companies with kosher
products don't advertise that fact.
Cost effectiveness is part — but there
could be another reason, as well.
"They may be afraid of an anti-Se-
mitic backlash," Ms. David suggests.
Ms. David cites Hershey chocolate.
Although the candy has "always been
kosher," she says, its wrappers didn't
have the kosher symbol because the
company "was afraid of offending any-
one."
Bonnie Hinkson, of Hershey Food
Corporation, in Pennsylvania, takes
exception to this allegation. Ms. Hink-
son says the symbol was on the wrap-
pers of the company's kosher products
at one time, then was taken off al-
though she doesn't know why or how
long ago. The company is in the
process of printing the symbol on the
labels of appropriate products, to
make it easier for shoppers.
At a recent National Association of
Specialty Food Trades show held in
Washington, D.C., Alan Abbey, of
Kosher Business, a monthly newslet-
ter about the kosher food industry,
counted more than 2,500 food com-
panies in attendance. Of the 900 with
kosher certification, many were new