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How the product “Israel” can remain competitive in the Supermarket of Nations
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Israeli-Canadian youth wave flags and sing during a Winnipeg Car Rally for Israel 2021. (Photo: Supplied)
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Imagine you’re walking into a supermarket. Your shopping cart is empty, and the shelves are bursting with products. But this supermarket isn’t like the one around the corner from where you live.
Immediately you notice the difference: instead of the “Breakfast Cereals” aisle, you see an aisle called “Travel Destinations.” Its shelves are brimming with places to visit abroad, enticing you to pick one for your next vacation. The “Made-In” aisle is where you may find — out of hundreds of other products manufactured around the world — a car, for example. But what you see is much more than the VW, Mini Cooper, or Lexus cars themselves. You see Germany, Great Britain and Japan’s unique styles and traits welded into the machine. Then there are the “Real Estate Deals”, “Business Investments” and the “Universities” aisles. In fact, there’s an aisle for everything here.
Welcome to the Supermarket of Nations, where people from all over the world shop every day – especially in its digital format, on social media.
One of the countries they may come across, as they’re walking down the aisles that span as far as the eye can see, is Israel. Now, ask yourself, would they pick “Israel” over any other product?
While the Jewish homeland truly has so much to offer, especially to the Next Generation – food, tech, social activism, modern dance, the list goes on and on – we cannot ignore the efforts of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, to recast all perceptions of the country in the mold of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They are entitled to use this tactic, even if they are playing dirty — for their objective is different from ours. And we must respond; we would be foolish not to. But we should not let them dictate how we manage Israel’s reputation in its entirety.
Unfortunately, many within our Tribe fall into this trap, perhaps not without reason. Even those of us who deeply love Israel agree that it has an image problem. Traditionally, the focus has been on directly taking on the anti-Israel narrative and countering it with rational, fact-based arguments.
However, this is a surefire way to give the BDS movement exactly what it wants: if we’re investing most of our resources and energy explaining Israel’s geo-political policies, our ability to showcase the country’s most attractive features — in the other aisles of the Supermarket of Nations, where everybody else is happily filling their carts — is significantly curtailed.
The Hebrew expression for “Israel Advocacy” is hasbara. Many people use the term, but non-Hebrew speakers often don’t know that its literal translation is explanation, or the act of explaining. The assumption is: first you need to agree with us, then you will like us. We think it works the other way around. Focusing almost all of Israel’s efforts on hasbara sidelines the fact that Israel is not a conflict; it’s a country. And countries need to thrive, not just survive.
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Think of a non-Jewish teen or twenty-something who has no obvious connection to Israel. For them, Israel is nestled between hundreds of other place products, busy staving off its detractors and placing little importance on highlighting its strengths and appeal. How will they see it for all that it has to offer?
Now think of a young Jewish person, walking about in the Supermarket of Nations. Israel is there, but will they “buy” it? As we celebrate Israel’s 75th year of independence, how shocking is it that the answer is no longer a clear and resounding “Yes!”?
With this fresh perspective, you are hereby appointed the chief marketing officer of Israel (not, by contrast, its head of advocacy or crisis management). Your job is to make sure that the product “Israel” is placed strategically in the right aisle in the Supermarket of Nations, in a prime location, and to make every effort to ensure that it stands out – for all the right reasons!
When you think like a marketer rather than an advocate, the entire playing field changes, as do the strategies, the tools at your disposal, and your metrics for success. In the last twenty years, this is what almost every other country has recognized, investing tens – even hundreds – of millions of dollars in marketing and branding their offering to targeted audiences, shifting global perceptions in the direction of their choosing.
For the product “Israel” to remain competitive in the Supermarket of Nations, we need to think a lot more like chief marketing officers, and a little less like advocates or crisis managers. There’s room for both schools of thought and action – but it’s high time we give the former a fighting chance to prove itself. The future of Jewish Peoplehood depends on it.
This text is an abridged excerpt of Chapter 3: The Supermarket of Nations, from a new international best-seller, Ethical Tribing: Connecting the Next Generation to Israel in the Digital Era, co-authored by Joanna Landau and Michael Golden.
Joanna Landau is the founder of Vibe Israel, which aims to change the way Israel is perceived in global public opinion. She is a governor of Tel Aviv University, a member of the International Education Committee of Taglit-Birthright, and a board member of the Brand Israel Group in New York. In 2013 she was voted by Forbes Israel as one of ten powerful women in Israel to look out for, and in 2015 she was shortlisted for the Rappaport Prize for a Change Making Woman. She lives in Tel-Aviv with her husband and three children.
Michael Golden is a bestselling author who is addicted to investigating complex subjects and uncovering the deeper stories within them. Long before writing books, Michael worked as an investigative and public affairs reporter for CBS and NBC-TV affiliates. Today an opinion journalist, Michael’s political analysis and social commentary are featured in media throughout the country.
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Happy reading!
Thank you for choosing TheJ.Ca as your source for Canadian Jewish News.
We do news differently!
Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.
We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.
But we can’t do it alone. We need your HELP!
Our ability to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond depends on the generosity of committed readers and supporters like you.
Monthly support is a great way to help us sustain our operations. We greatly appreciate any contributions you can make to support Jewish Journalism.
We thank you for your ongoing support.
Happy reading!
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