Jewish Ads
Offer Bland Diet
ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
T
Mark and Nancy Morganroth
Robin Lynn Morganroth
Melissa & Randell Lewis
Kendell Nicole Lewis
•
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he full-page ad in the Utne
Reader, the Reader's Digest
for the alternative press,
drew me up short.
It offered "a few Rosh Hashanah
thoughts" along with a list of 14 sug-
gested ways to enjoy the holiday. These
included "Write your own holiday
prayer. Share it," "Balance serious con-
versation with laughter," "Reflect on
your good fortune," "Forget your office
voice mail," and "Rejoice in the love
that surrounds you."
Who was responsible for so gener-
ous and welcoming an advertisement,
so traditional in its feel for the
rhythms and themes of the New Year
but attuned to the contemporary feel-
ings of so many American Jews?
What Jewish organization was willing
to reach out to the granola and
Birkenstocks crowd, those New Age
seekers whose Jewishness is often
decried by traditionalists as "narcissis-
tic," "syncretic," even "pagan"?
Well, no Jewish organization, it
turns out. The advertiser was the
Solgar Vitamin and Herb Company
in Leonia, N.J. And it is no small
irony that it took a nutritional sup-
plement company to highlight the
bland, stale and often unhealthy diet
served up by most Jewish institutions
in their advertising.
Over the past few months I have
been collecting advertisements placed
by synagogues, community federations,
JCCs and other institutions, usually in
Jewish newspapers. I've then shown
them to various Jewish audiences, ask-
ing which of the advertisers' pitches
appeal to them, and which sorts of
messages they would like to see coming
out of organized Jewry.
Target Audience
Especially among the 20-something,
marginally-affiliated-but-willing-to-
be-convinced cohort that is seemingly
the target audience for many of the
Jewish advertisers, the reaction to
most of the ads was surprisingly nega-,
tive. Surprising to me, at least, an old
fogy of 39 who thought many of the
ads were on target, even hip.
Before I could understand their
objections, I had to understand the ads.
And to do so I played the old
hermeneutic trick you use•when
studying the Torah commentaries of
the 11th century sage Rashi: Mah
kashe l'Rashi? What's bothering Rashi?,
Rashi's commentaries include his
answers to questions posed by the
text, but not the questions them-
selves. Similarly, every advertisement
is a solution to a problem identified
by the advertiser. How do we get
adults to drink more milk? How do
we get consumers to spend more for
our name-brand product than for the
cheaper, generic variety?
What's "bothering" advertisers,
then, is the behavior or perceptions of
certain target audiences; the "solu-
tion" is to make emotional connec-
tions and either transform or rein-
force the desires that fuel their con-
sumer choices.
Advertisers often identify , these target
audiences by their mindsets: their val-
ues, yearnings, needs. I was able to
identify at least seven audiences, or
mindsets, seen by Jewish advertisers as
likely targets for their products or ser-
vices — as "problems" to be "solved."
Below I list these seven cohorts.
Five of these categories were particu-
larly bothersome to younger audi-
ences despite what I thought were
good intentions — and even brave
community criticism — on the part
of the advertisers. I paraphrase their
objections.
The last two approaches hint at a
way of communicating — indeed, at
a way of being Jewish — that may
offer the best hope for effectively con-
necting Jewishness with the majority
of American Jews.
Andrew Silow-Carroll is former com-
Ad Campaigns
munications director for the National
Jewish Center for Learning and
Leadership and new managing editor
for the Forward.
• "Why Does Judaism Have to
Stink?" Audience
JEWISH ADS
on page 182