Model Citizens

This was the year that the first frum models were introduced into our campaigns. We’d show a heimishe guy with a beautiful silver becher and that was the gimmick. That’s it. An authentic frum Yid making Kiddush was enough to grab readers. Once this trend got abused, it was on to bigger and better. The photography then needed a creative twist.

—Shlome

2018

Buy Smart

The conversation began in 2015, but by 2018 the value of a professional doing your media buying was strongly defined. The explosion of so many publications — both in print and online — created a lot of unknowns: Where was the best place to spend the marketing dollars, and how much money should you spend? What was your target audience reading and engaging in? Media buying built a strategic budget and strategy, removing the guesswork.

—Chayale

2019

Peak of Growth

At the cusp of 2020, the frum American media became very polished and sophisticated, surpassing other parallel markets. The bar was raised. It became more and more difficult to stand out with your brilliance. The copy also shifted. Quirky copy took off. It took a second to “get” it, but when you did, you felt amused and gratified.

—Yossi

2020

The Next Dimension 

The 3-D Agudah logo in the iconic Agudah campaign by Mutty Landau from Heart.Works was gorgeous. It made me say to myself, I need to bring in 3-D!

—Shlome

2020

Positive Messaging

During Covid, the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation wanted to do something that would have a real impact, not just raise money. At that time people needed chizuk. We set a goal of getting 10,000 people to make a unique shmiras halashon commitment. It happened within a week and everyone was amazed. Other such campaigns (such as “Put it Away”) followed.

—Chayale

Explosion of Online

When we couldn’t be around people, tech became our main medium of communication. Face-to-face was replaced by screen-to-screen, and online marketing exploded. The results were off the charts!

—Chayale

2021

Clip and Save

This is the year that video clips became very popular in our market. Fifty percent of the ads we created were animated for online platforms and WhatsApp.

—Shlome

2022

Eye on AI

As AI began crossing from the world of sci-fi to a business tool, we designated one employee to monitor where AI was going. We realized that AI wasn’t replacing anyone, but it did speed up the process; our imaginations become limitless.

The other thing it did was force us to up our game even more. With AI it’s become so easy to produce, so our creative output had to stand way above anything AI could generate. With each new AI program, we need a compelling reason why someone needs me over AI.

—Shlome

The Lifestyle Look

Instead of those perfectly posed shots, the new trend was lifestyle photography — catching subjects absorbed in action. Of course, it takes a team of stylists and professionals to get the perfect “candid” look and feel. By 2023, some photoshoots took us across the world, to places like Israel or Italy.

—Shlome

2024

Print Is Real

Twenty years into this adventure, we’ve learned that as much as the online world has exploded, print still holds its significant place in media. Digital ads move quickly. You can’t control what and how much is being thrown at you. A print ad, in contrast, is real. You can touch it. You can look at print ads at your own pace and by your own choice. That’s why print ads often serve as defining moments of a campaign.

—Chayale

2025

Looking Ahead

What’s next? Deep, smart, creatively executed illustrations will become a thing. Optimized customer journeys for online Google searches will become more of a thing in the frum world, and certain online platforms will take off even more.

—Yossi

Perks of the Job

There’s a lot of pressure in this fast-line vocation, but the perks are correspondingly impressive. What were some high moments on the job?

We get to be a part of campaigns that raise millions of dollars for tzedakah. How cool is that? The impact of our work moves companies and helps others shine and earn parnassah.

—Yossi

There’s a thrill watching your work produce results. During our recent Rich Chocolate campaign, we actually had to pull the ads after a couple of weeks because there was no chocolate left.

—Shlome

The right messaging creates a boost of confidence and purpose. For example, the recent Flatbush Hatzoloh campaign turned the Hatzoloh guys into the most celebrated guys in town; it turned them into heroes. A good campaign can build a stronger drive and purpose. And it’s amazing to be part of that.

—Chayale

In political campaigns, it’s always been standard to have real people, not models, in campaign ads. When we worked on the “Bloomberg for Mayor” campaign in 2005, we needed last-minute pictures of Mike Bloomberg together with children in our community. There was no time to find kids and get photo releases, so we used my children. I had him do math homework with my daughter Miriam. The joke was: Is there anyone better than Mike Bloomberg to teach math? He sure knew a thing or two about money!

—Yitzchok

Now, That’s a Campaign

During the last 20 years, frum media has featured no end of bright, clever, or moving campaigns. Which ones still stand out, and why? The experts share their top picks

Campaign: Pomegranate Supermarket

Year: 2010

Backstory: Who can forget the Pomegranate ads? These ads, designed by KZ creative, were the first ads to really wow me and wow everyone. Eli Kaufman and Zevi Zilberberg deserve credit for raising the bar. The copy and design were clean and clever. Before that, companies would create ads with different looks each time — red, orange, green — why not change it up? With this ad campaign, Pomegranate achieved a consistent and strong brand identity.

—Shlome

Campaign: Imperial Collection

Year: 2010

Backstory: This was my first client. A premium Russian brand of vodka wanted to break into the kosher market.

It was Shavuos time, so I took a photo of two vodka bottles and photoshopped them into a mass gathering of Jews. The text: “Naaseh v’nishteh amru k’echad.”

This ad shook up the world. It was exactly the thing people loved to hate. I got hate mail. Roshei yeshivah spoke out against it.

And I learned a lot about sensitivity and culture. It’s not only about brilliant creativity. We have to be eidel and understand our audience; the ads have to resonate with them. This campaign also showed me the value of marketing; I saw just how much people cared.

—Yossi

Campaign: RCCS There Are No Words

Year: 2014

Backstory: The iconic yellow ads had four words crossed out: “There are no words.”

The message was bold and powerful: Let the pain be pain. That yellow color represented RCCS.

What amazed us was how a female-driven campaign, on a party level, raised such an incredible amount of tzedakah. The campaign was crazy successful, and the women behind it deserved a lot of credit!

—Yossi

Campaign: Keren Hashviis

Year: 2014

Backstory: What the Ptex group did was sheer brilliance. They took a totally foreign concept — farmers and Israeli agriculture — and brought it close to home with artistic close-up photography and text that made it so personal. Not only that, but they turned the farmers into heroes instead of pitiful people who needed our help. This campaign united Klal Yisrael to stand behind the farmers and the mitzvah of shemittah.

—Shlome

Campaign: Dirshu Yid

Year: 2020

Backstory: With Dart Media’s signature “Dirshu Yid” campaign, they created a movement of balabatim striving to become lomdei Torah. The key: creating a title for the learners that brings them well-deserved pride and a sense of being a better Yid.

—Yossi

Campaign: India Needs our Help

Year: 2022

Backstory: This was the strangest thing I ever did!

There was a terrible natural disaster in India, and the OU wanted to launch an emergency campaign to provide oxygen concentrators. The OU felt it was important to show the world that Jews cared for greater humanity.

When they called me, I had a hard time connecting. India? Seriously? This was so foreign to me. But with enough effort you can build connection. I looked at the pictures and read articles. I tried hard to really feel what the people in India were going through.

In the end, that campaign was a success, and it generated a tremendous kiddush Hashem.

—Chayale

The Elements of a Campaign

“Less is more” isn’t just a helpful recommendation.

It’s a must! It’s never a good idea to put two messages into one ad. Sometimes a client will look at an ad and say, “This is what I paid for?” I say no, you paid for everything that I left out of the ad! As Mark Twain said, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time.”

—Shlome

The 80:20 Balance

Every company can use a balance of 80- and 20-year-olds.

We need the vibrancy and passion of the youth — their ideas are amazing and exciting. The youth lights the fire that keeps everyone else on their toes. At Bottom Line Marketing Group we pride ourselves in our employers who weren’t even born when our company was founded!

Yet the veterans in the field bring in solid wisdom. There are certain mistakes that only the veterans can catch.

—Yitzchok

Deadline and Adrenaline

Creatives work well under pressure. Deadlines get us going. That’s when the adrenaline kicks in with an electrifying, creative high. Sometimes the client is waiting in the conference room, and we still haven’t figured it out yet, but he’s waiting, so we’ve got to do this, and punch! The idea comes.

—Yossi

Nuanced Connecting

Jewish women bring a lot to the table: We‘re natural multitaskers, figure-it-outers, and deep connectors.

Every campaign starts with intense research and discovery. That can only happen by connecting to the client at a deep level. Over the years, I’ve developed an obsession with connecting to my clients. I will only talk over Google Meets, not the phone, so I can see the client face-to-face, and I am personally involved in every campaign.

Everything boils down to connection with people. When clients tell me that they‘re a B2B, I say no, you’re a B2C, because the business owner is a person. And you need to connect to him. It’s all person to person, heart to heart.

—Chayale

It Could Only Happen Here

Over the course of their years in the business, these marketing experts have accrued a history of hard-to-believe escapades and near-disasters. Here’s a sampling:

Lost Forever?

The B Campaign for the Boro Park Hatzolah was the most disastrous near-fiasco in the history of GCNY Marketing.

We spent weeks working on the auction booklet. Everything is booked backward, so we were working with a tight deadline.

Three days before going to print, the file was intercepted in InDesign. About 60 pages of photography, writing, and design were gone! We brought in tech experts to revive it, but they couldn’t do anything. Back then, clouds were things in the sky. Our work was gone forever.

It was death!

Our heart and soul goes into our work; our soul is sold to the product. Especially this campaign — it was a community organization. It was Hatzalah!

We spent the next three days working through the days and nights. The owner of The Loft Steakhouse is a Hatzolah member, so he sent us supper each night. We punched through until the end and the product was perfect. The campaign was on fire!

It was a sick campaign, but it took a lot of craziness to get there.

—Yossi

Deadline Drive

Dirshu held one siyum on Monday night and a second in Binyani Ha’Umah on Tuesday night.

We wanted to get extensive coverage into that week’s papers (that come out on Wednesday), but the deadlines were on Monday and Tuesday nights. So we assembled an amazing international team of writers including Rabbi Nachman Seltzer, Rabbi Avraham Birnbaum, Rabbi Menachem Eidelman, and Rabbi Shimon Bloom.

Our team began working in a hotel. But a youth group was playing football in the hallways and we couldn’t think straight — so we transferred to the Crowne Plaza to work through the night until we were ready to send off the material to print.

That Shabbos, I met a friend who had been at the event. “I don’t understand. The event just happened! How did you get so much coverage into this week’s papers?”

That, my friend, is media!

—Yitzchok

The Disappearing Model

When we first started running ads featuring frum Jews, it was almost impossible to find frum models. We tried dressing up secular models with fake beards, makeup, and beketshes; but it wasn’t the same.

Then we finally found a frum guy who was willing to model. We did the shoot, built the ad, and then we had to pull it because his mother-in-law found out and was hysterically mortified!

As the concept took off, more and more men became comfortable serving as models for compensation — either payment or in the form of the item they were modeling (such as a $5,000 shtreimel). And we make sure that each one signs a consent form.

—Shlome

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1008)