Behind Robert Kraft’s $15 Million Blue Square Super
Bowl Ad - Did it End Jew Hate or Make it Worse??

Watch and Listen

Hello folks, and welcome to a very special emergency episode of the pod.

We've never done one of these before, but I thought this was a really unique and important opportunity.

So here we are.

I am joined today by Adam Katz, who is the president of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate.

The organization started by Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, who famously ha had an ad on the Super Bowl just yesterday.

We're filming this on February 9th.

It's the third year in a row that there has been an ad.

From this organization, which has taken different names over the years, speaking up and out against anti JW hate.

Now this particular ad has been met with very different reactions, uh, from within the Jewish community, from without the Jewish community.

And I thought the best way to sort through what everybody's thinking and feeling is to just go straight to the source.

So the first thing I wanna say, Adam, is welcome.

It's, it's great to have you here and great to be in conversation with you.

Thank you, Jonah.

Thank you so much for having me.

For sure.

The second thing I wanna say is this.

I, we, there's like, I don't know where this comes from, but people think that like this $15 million Super Bowl ad, like somebody was like, uh, yeah, have the intern write an ad and like, uh, let's hope it's good.

Like you guys are a serious organization.

You, you're, you're founded by a guy who's famous for running a serious, wildly successful organization.

Like I'm certain there is data, there has been focus groups, like there's analytics, like there is a method here.

You, you didn't just throw a dart at a wall.

So let's start with specifically the ad we saw yesterday on the Super Bowl sticky note.

What was the goal?

Like?

What were you trying to achieve by it, and then why did this ad, why was this the vehicle that you all decided was the best way to achieve that goal?

So this ad was really focused on reaching a particular audience community that is our target audience at the Blue Square Alliance against Hait, which we call the unengaged Americans.

And when we say unengaged, it's unengaged on the topic of antisemitism of Jewish hate.

You know, we find that there are close to 140 million Americans by our surveys and other methodologies who are behaviorally apathetic on the topic of Jewish hates.

They might have feelings and opinions.

They don't do anything about it in a Jewish, they don't consider Jewish hate a significant issue.

They're not aware of the frequency or severity of incidents that take place.

They don't know how to get involved, and they don't feel an urge to get involved.

That is who we're trying to reach, and obviously with the Super Bowl, that is the biggest possible platform to reach that audience.

As you mentioned, this was not just an intern scribbling some ideas, and then we threw a lot of money at it.

Um, this was a very, very rigorous process.

It started with what are the most concerning issues in Jewish hate today?

And we look at the data, we see that particularly in among younger generations, that's where Jewish hate is growing the fastest.

You know, we saw a very, very alarming statistic that, uh, folks in Gen Z are three times more likely to witness antisemitism.

At the same time, they're twice as likely to say it's not a problem.

Right.

That's a very, very scary dichotomy, um, when you compare that to older generations.

And so that right there said, we need to be focused on this audience.

Almost like there, there was no other choice effectively for this campaign.

And we needed to show something that was relatable to everybody to that, that this 140 million unengaged audience could look at and say, okay, I can see myself in that.

I understand.

What that, that is relevant to me.

And I can't just say, oh, that would happen in the town down the street.

That wouldn't happen in my place.

And so that led to this ad in every single creative decision.

In it.

For example, that statistic that we show towards the end of the ad, that two and three Jewish Americans, uh, teenagers have experienced antisemitism, which is horrifying.

That is not known to the vast majority of our target audience.

It prevents them from being able to look at it and say.

Well, that couldn't happen in my town.

That would only happen in the other town.

Well, it's happening in every town, right?

Like this is the majority of Jewish teens are experiencing antisemitism.

Everybody needs to look in a mirror.

Everybody needs to recognize that.

And so then, then we went through a very rigorous process of testing creative concepts and creative execution.

With focus groups, with various audience panels, all representing our unengaged target audience.

Young folks that are behaviorally apathetic on this topic and making sure that they responded to the ad in the right way.

They needed to watch the ad and say, I see antisemitism more than I did before.

I am more concerned about antisemitism than I was before.

I am more inclined to do something about antisemitism than I was before.

Only when.

Our ad meets all of those thresholds.

Are we comfortable investing any dollars in distributing it?

Okay, so I have a bunch of questions, please.

So I wanna go back first to the beginning of what you said, which was this 140 million.

What it sounds like there's a, there's a lumping together of like people who may have attitudes, but just don't say or do anything about it.

Versus people who have literally no idea, they're just going about their lives.

I don't even know this is a thing.

Is there any distinguishing in trying to reach those groups differently or you're just trying to hit that whole bucket altogether and, and hope it works on both kinds of groups?

It's both.

And, and I wanna go back to, uh, you went back, I'm gonna go back now.

Uh, $15 million.

We're spending $15 million on a campaign that's running for several months.

We're not spending $15 million on one 32nd spot in the Super Bowl.

The majority of our investment is actually on, and the majority of our media spend in general is on digital streaming, social media channels where we can target down to the household, down to the user when we're, when we're deploying again in those channels.

We're able to tailor the message, tailor the messenger, and so we can give something different to that person that might have those latent beliefs that doesn't act on them, versus the person that's truly apathetic, like head in the sand.

When you say you're able to tailor, does that mean different versions of sticky note or different commercials?

Other, uh, content.

So, so sticky Note was met specifically for this distribution opportunity, um, which includes Super Bowl, which includes I think, 60 something placements during Winter Olympics, and a number of other placements coming up, both in broadcast and streaming, and.

We will have many, many other forms of content that we'll be distributing across these other channels.

And we've continued to distribute across these other channels that are targeted and tailored to specific audiences.

And so using the Super Bowl as the platform to reach the broadest possible audience with a message that can resonate with the broadest possible contingency, and being able to then do sub audience work sort of in the other channels.

You said, you know, you, you're testing, uh, with, with groups.

Are you testing this one ad and tweaking it, or you, did you guys shoot several ads and see which one was gonna work better?

Like what's that process?

Yes.

So, and when a yes is we, we start by testing a bunch of different concepts and we do it in a few different rounds.

So we're getting feedback as we're narrowing the list.

Ultimately, I mean, it's similar to any other creative exercise.

You start with a narrow, uh, broader list of, of potentials and you narrow your way down based on feedback.

Then, then once we nail it down to that specific, this concept, which was the winner.

Versus all of the others throughout that testing, then we continue to refine based on audience feedback and that's where we touch up certain things and you make sure that every single detail lands as I impactfully as possible.

And are you testing these, this Gen Z focus group in like a focus group environment or is it in the environment where they would be consuming the commercial, like at home or online?

Yes.

Again, we do.

We're we're, we're very thorough.

It's, I think you do it all.

You hit 'em everywhere.

Not obvious.

Well, for this kind of investment, we have a tremendous burden as messengers on this topic.

We are spending a lot of money.

We don't take that lightly at all.

We need to make it as good as it can possibly be.

We are a fiduciary for the Jewish community on this issue.

That, and being a parent of two Jewish children are probably the two most serious responsibilities I have in life.

So to that point, we test many different ways, including, um, the focus group environment as well as the environment in which they would be viewing it at home.

Both, some, in some cases on their phone, some cases on a big screen.

We need to see it all.

Just as a follow-up to that, like how long of a process was it to, to land on this ad?

Actually just about the word antisemitism itself.

I've seen studies and data that that word is, is itself not necessarily the most effective way to communicate what anti Jew hate is.

Talk to me about your use of it there and, and what your data has shown about the effectiveness of that term similar to you.

Uh, we find that Jewish hate or Jew hate.

Is, uh, is a clearer term.

It doesn't have the same associations connotations.

It's more familiar to folks.

It's, and so that's why we are, you know, our social handle is standup to Jewish hate.

Uh, we're not saying standup to antisemitism.

It's not that anti antisemitism is a word that we disagree with, but we need to be relatable.

Like we have enough.

Hurdles to clear as a community, let's not put more in front of ourselves.

I agree.

So that, I guess my question is, in the ad, in that, in that text, the word is antisemitism, so I'm sure you, you tested it.

So how did that one end up there versus Jew hate?

We tested that to make sure that it was, it was also consistent with the studies that were conducted.

So this, the stat that we had was based on studies that were conducted, um, by a few different, uh, third party organizations.

So you're consistent with that.

But if you look at the, the end.

Uh, caption of the, where it shows stand up to hate, stand up to Jewish hate at the end.

It's not saying stand up to antisemitism.

Mm-hmm.

So let's talk a little bit about the reactions to, to the, to the ad.

Let's first go to some of the reactions from the Jewish community to the people who saw it online before it was on the Super Bowl.

And, you know, you can please add to this if I'm missing something.

But basically like the two most common responses that I saw, uh, that were.

You know, negative about the ad was one is, well, the real Jew hate that teens are facing today is anti-Zionist hate.

So like it's not dirty Jew, it's baby killer and genocide and all of that.

And number two is we should show Jews being strong.

And being able to take care of themselves and not needing support from some other person who's not Jewish to sort of swoop in and have their back.

I dunno if I missed anything.

Those are the two I saw the most.

And how do you respond to those two pieces of feedback?

Yeah.

Well, I'd say first that what we've seen by far the most is support.

To be clear, um, we have seen the vast, vast majority of the responses have been, uh, thank you for putting this ad together.

Thank you for calling attention to this and other positive, uh, responses, but.

There have been the challenges as well, and, and all engagement is good engagement.

This is good for us as a community, um, to the first about, um, the word choice of Dirty Jew versus something related to Israel or Zionism.

Uh, so we, we act, we put a lot of work into this and we were, we were studying what both on social media and physically in the real world is happening frequently and is recognizable to all sub audiences Here.

What we found is the phrase Dirty Jew, which, uh, it was surprising to me 'cause it sounds somewhat antiquated.

It feels like it was in Liberty Heights or something like that.

Had nearly 500 million impressions on social media since 2023.

Right?

Like it blew out of the water.

All the other phrases you just said.

Wow.

And it's growing faster.

It's growing 174% versus the prior time period.

So just the ubiquity, which is like, I hate to say, ubiquity around an anti-Semitic slur.

That's what it is.

Um, that was sarc.

We also saw a number of stories around with this per this specific term being used in high schools across the country.

Um, we saw an ex examples in Texas and California and other locations where this was being used.

And so it feels old, and yet it's very, very contemporary.

The other piece is when we did our testing and this just kind of helped buttress the, the approach, it was highly recognizable.

And we, we would check with with audience.

Again, these are audience members that.

Don't see antisemitism on a regular basis.

The vast majority of them don't have close relationships with Jewish people.

Or if they do, they don't know that they're Jewish, so they're not seeing the same sort of frequency of antisemitism that we are.

They would see a word like baby killer and have frankly no idea.

That it's referring to what's going on in Za, right?

They would, they, I don't, I don't know what their association would be, but it's not that, that also reinforced for us.

Okay, this is a, this is, this is authentic.

This is actually what's happening every day.

Unfortunately, we completely get the criticism and understand it.

If this ad was intended per, let's say, for the more hostile antisemites out there, right?

Uh, we wouldn't have gone with that wording, but because this is for the folks that were trying to cultivate from dormancy into allyship.

That's, that this was the appropriate word, choice to the second about, um, portraying Jews as more strong and able to take care of themselves and, and pushing back.

Um, as I mentioned, I'm a parent of a, a 9-year-old Jewish boy and a 7-year-old Jewish daughter.

Um.

I absolutely want them to feel prideful and strong as Jews and have no reason to feel ashamed or weak or vulnerable or anything like that.

That is a message that we need to reinforce to our community.

However, we find again in our research that for this audience of 140 million Americans, they see antisemitism not only as insignificant, but as a problem that the Jews can solve themselves.

And so we need to wake them up and we need to model allyship.

And it's, and the purpose of the ad, you know, when we, when we did it and we got feedback from the audience, we never saw people saying the Jew, that Jewish boy looks very weak.

We saw it was great that the ally stepped in.

We debated this.

You don't see the Jewish child.

Take his star of David and tuck it in, right?

We don't see him do things to mask his Judaism.

That would be a different response.

That doesn't happen in this campaign.

What we see instead is the ally who comes up and stands shoulder to shoulder with him, and that was critically important to us because that's the audience we're reaching.

We're trying to tell more and more.

There's 140 million.

You can be an ally too.

It's not that complicated.

I should have asked this at the top, but like how did you determine like that this.

140 million.

That's the audience.

That's the lane that you guys are gonna drive in.

That's where Robert founded this six years ago, to reach that group of people, to reach that group of people.

So six years ago when Robert founded this organization, there are, there are hundreds, you know this as well as I do.

There are hundreds of Jewish organizations operating in this space and many are doing fantastic work.

Uh, nearly all are doing fantastic work.

There was a gap.

There was a gap in.

This middle, this movable middle we call, we call 'em Unengagement.

We call 'em moveable middle.

You can call 'em persuadable, whatever you want.

They were actually not being served and not being served at all really, and not being served at scale.

Certainly you had a lot that was focused on continuing to support and enrich our base and provide great opportunities and protection for the Jewish community.

That's wonderful.

There was a decent amount that was focused on the sort of the haters out there.

Um, and then that's necessary.

That's wonderful work too.

Nobody was really targeting this movable middle and certainly not at scale.

And you know, why we focus on that is not only that they were being largely neglected, but if you look at the most successful social movements in modern American history, and we do because we're trying to learn and not reinvent the wheel as much as we can.

You take L-G-B-T-Q rights and freedom to marry.

One of the most impactful things over the last 30 years was getting.

Dormant, movable middle people to care.

And so you saw, and if, and if you remember all of the different messaging campaigns in the nineties, two thousands, 2010s, that was really focused on reaching that audience.

And one of the interesting things, if you go back to those campaigns, you will see that they are the heroes.

And almost all of the campaigns and the, and the centerpiece of the campaigns is the ally.

It's in many cases, it's the parent of the gay or lesbian child who's having to deal with, oh.

I didn't expect my son or daughter to be gay.

This is a hardship for me, but I'm gonna deal with it.

And because that was what was the relatable story.

Yeah.

To the rest of America.

How are you able to test the effectiveness of these ads once they come out?

How can you see, are you changing attitudes?

Are you changing behaviors?

Are you changing anything?

Modern media measurement.

It's a wonderful thing.

Um, we're able to a, again, because as I mentioned the majority of our spend is on, uh, digital, social personalizable channels, we're able to ask people based on.

The number, the amount of exposure they've had, both at an individual ad level and across multiple ads.

What was the impact on your feelings?

How significant of an issue is antisemitism?

How much does it matter to you?

How likely are you to get involved?

What would you do if you saw a Jewish person experiencing antisemitism?

Or we might, we might word it as Jewish hate, um, in, in the, in the survey.

Uh, but we're able to ask that and compare.

To those who got the treatment and those who got the placebo and those who got higher dosage and those who got lower dosage.

And so that we use that to make sure that we are putting dollars in the most efficacious way as possible, that it is driving greater awareness, greater empathy, and ultimately greater allyship.

And so, as I mentioned, the sticky note just debuted all the Super Bowl yesterday.

Is it too early?

Are there any returns yet to, or, or we, we will know.

We won't know for, for weeks.

How, how that impact landed.

We won't have a full body of, uh, evidence for weeks or even probably be a couple of months.

I mean, the early indicators are great.

Um, we look at.

The increased engagement and awareness among through things like, uh, social media, attention, um, and that's a signal of interest.

And, and again, we certainly care about how the Jewish community feels, but that's not our target audience here, right?

We're focused on activating folks who are unengaged on this topic.

Our people that we haven't reached before that haven't paid attention to this, are they starting to follow?

Are they watching the ads?

Are they joining and following us on social media?

They're posting blue squares.

Are they getting involved in different ways?

Are they requesting, um, we have blue sticky notes that we are making available for folks, uh, to be able to request and put up in their schools.

For example, we did a, a really cool, um, in real life activation at Super Bowl weekend at the NFL Super Bowl experience, uh, in Moscone Center in San Francisco, where you had like a giant, giant bulletin board where people could fill out.

Blue square sticky notes and post them on the board.

And we had, I think, close to 5,000 people over the last few days write out positive stories and, and phrases of unity of coming together, of allyship and support.

And so we're trying that, that's another way of, of showing the engagement.

And so we're gonna measure the response from people who see this ad.

So let's talk about the blue square since you bring it up.

Uh, I think anecdotally, a lot of people feel like in a post.

George Floyd World in a post A API hate world.

They're like, squares are performative.

They don't mean anything.

Nobody's doing them anyways.

But again, you guys are super data-driven.

So I'm curious, like what's the deal with the square?

How are you using it?

Is anybody using it?

What's the deal?

I had some initial, um.

Skepticism, for lack of a better word, when I, when I first saw the blue square.

Um, and as I got to better understand the rationale, uh, it, it made a lot more sense to me.

So it's, it's a gateway.

The blue square is a gateway that gets people to care in a low barrier to entry sort of activity.

Um, and it's not just about the pin, it could be.

The sticker you put on the back of your phone, it's something they share on social.

There's lots of manifestations, but the point is it's something that you can do.

That one is not dependent on a particular.

Incident of Jewish hate, right?

If we're looking for people to behave when the thing happens, you don't know when the thing's gonna happen.

You don't know how it's gonna happen.

That's hard to predict.

It's hard to measure.

Um, if you start by doing something like wearing this blue square that's already signaling a commitment that's already getting involved and getting off the sidelines, it may feel very, very small and symbolic, but it is a step into the conversation.

It enables us to track engagement.

It's a great.

Metric.

It's a great leading indicator of folks getting involved.

Um, and so we use it to see how when we do activities, when we do a black Jewish unity event, for example, we can see what is the follow on engagement in terms of blue square adoption, right?

Digital, physical.

We can see that.

And that tells us as a measure, how effective was that thing?

Did that mean that we eradicated antisemitism because people are to blue squares?

Absolutely not.

We're not delusional.

Um, but it is a start.

And it's a way to bring people in.

We're trying to create a movement.

We're trying to get more and more people to care, and we're giving them a symbol that gets them involved.

Now, what's really encouraging is it's a symbol that can have, um, amplifying effect.

So, uh, multiple, uh, several leaders of different, uh, private sector CEOs were at Davos, non-Jewish now at, or some Jewish, some non-Jewish, wearing the blue square at Davos on the stage.

With all the cameras on them.

Right.

That is a very, very powerful thing because then they see, and especially in such a political environment, that folks are willing to do that.

Um, we saw a number of other celebrities that are wearing it.

Van Jones wears on CNN just about every time.

So when you see people like that, it starts to, one, raise curiosity and awareness about what the Blue Square is, and two, it gives comfort to other people that they can do it.

We do research and we find that on the topic of Jewish hate.

People do not feel social pressure to stand up on behalf of a Jew nearly as much as they do on behalf of other groups feeling persecution or bigotry.

So we need to shift that dynamic.

'cause right now you're feeling like someone out there is feeling like it's actually a social risk for me to defend a Jew.

We need to flip it.

It needs to be cool and it needs to be social risk not to defend a Jew.

And that, and, and this is a pathway to do that because it just starts to normalize that it's okay to support a Jew.

It's not as big a gesture as wrestling a shotgun away from somebody.

We get that, but it's a, it's a step in that direction.

It sounds great, Adam, but are people doing it?

Yes.

So we have had, uh, we have distributed over 5 million pins, um, since we launched the campaign about, uh, just under three years ago.

Um, and, and, and we have a number and I can share with you pictures of, of various, uh.

Famous and less famous people, um, wearing the blue squares.

And we're just, you know, it's, it's the kind of thing that it takes time.

We're gonna continue to get more and more adoption, more and more engagement.

Um, but, but that's, that's what the work is.

And we gotta put in the workday in and day out.

Are you able to data test the effectiveness of the square?

Yeah.

So we're able to see to what extent.

Is it a leading indicator of future behavior?

Right.

I mean, it's, you think about it as analogous to, not, not quite analogous, but, um, when other consumer brands would, let's say, distribute a coupon.

Things like that.

And you can say, okay, once they do that, does that, is that a good investment?

Does that lead to subsequent purchase behavior?

We're able to use the same principles and same measurement for this.

So when someone orders a blue square or when we provide them at an event, we can see what is the follow on behavior of the people that ordered or received a blue square.

Are they more likely to get involved?

Are they more likely to financially support this or other organizations, various other measures that show a greater level of commitment.

And are you seeing.

Wow, this is doing great.

Is it like, nah, is it we needed sexier square?

Like, what's, what's the feedback?

It's very encouraging.

If it wasn't, we wouldn't be doing it.

Um, so we're, we're, we see significant sort of follow through behavior from folks that get engaged this way.

Um, now I'll be honest, the, this.

Physical magnetic pin is a little bit more of a, an older generation, uh, sort of thing.

And so we're not, uh, that's not the, the version of the merch that we're pushing on college campuses.

For example, we have, uh, bracelets, I don't have any in front of me at the moment, but we have like a rubber, like the livestrong kind of thing.

You see, we have like a live strong one that's, that's tends to be more popular with the boys on campus.

And then we have, I think it's called a Y 2K bracelet.

I'm not that hip.

Um.

But it's what Taylor Swift popularized.

It's like beads.

That one's a, it's stand up to Jewish hate as you would like.

Nice.

Um, that is, uh, it tends to be more, more popular with the women on campus.

Okay.

So now I want, I wanna look a little bit at, uh, sort of the, the evolution of the organization and the messaging.

The name has changed multiple times of the organization, obviously due to some sort of data or feedback that you guys are getting, as has the messaging of your major ads.

Sometimes it's been.

anti-Semitism, then it's all hate, then it's Jew hate.

Like you're, there's different things going on.

Take me if you could, you don't have to go so granular, but from the beginning to now, especially with the name changes, like what have been the big learnings that have led us to now it's, you know, the Blue Square Alliance versus foundation Combat Hate or anti-Semitism, or you know, where the focus is.

The name change and the, and the focus on Blue Square Alliance was really that we wanted a name that evoked what we stood for.

Um, and, you know, we stand for building allies and building unity.

Um, and it, it, this may sound sort of, uh, small, but.

Combat antisemitism.

We've already talked about the potential challenges of the word antisemitism, but I'm gonna focus on the word combat.

Combat is, has hostile connotations, uh, right.

That is not a unifying bridge building bring people in Word.

Um, that is our objective, but that's not, you know, from a marketing perspective, that's sending a weird signal to people.

And so, you know, by going with Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, it's really about.

Pulling people in and giving folks a, a unifying platform and a unifying opportunity.

The approach at the beginning different that, like the way we're gonna go about achieving, even though the goal's the same, it we didn't necessarily land on.

Okay.

The, the key thing is allyship and bridge building necessarily, and that you sort of discovered as you went.

It was.

Purely an opportunity to better optimize our name with respect to what we are.

We, the, the organization was always started as something that was focused on bridge building and allyship.

That has not changed.

It's, we have never been a confrontational, adversarial organization.

You can go back to, um, you know, the first remarks Robert gave and he founded this and it was all about we wanna bring people in.

We believe that the vast majority of Americans.

Our good in their hearts.

We just need to activate that.

Um, none of that has changed.

That's always been true.

We just felt that there was a better way to express externally, um, what we sit for.

Now, take me through the evolution in terms of like even the Super Bowl ads.

Like first we're talking about Jewish hate, then it sort of became all hate and now we're back.

It seems like more squarely on Jewish hate.

So what, what led you guys down that path?

We internally think about it.

Somewhat differently than a lot of people externally in the sense that obviously the Super Bowl ads are these big milestone tent pole things for us.

They're one arrow in the quiver.

Um, you know, we have these broader campaigns across all of these different channels, and as I mentioned, you know, $15 million covers a lot of activity of which one component is the Super Bowl.

The, so we think about our entire portfolio of work and what is the, the most appropriate message.

Based on what is in the portfolio at that time and for that specific occasion.

Uh, and so, you know, for example, when we ran a year ago, the ad with Snoop and Brady, um, we had been running up until that point a lot of other ad campaigns that were very intensely focused on Jewish.

And that's really what the, the diet that our audience base was seeing with almost a hundred percent Jewish state.

So you can picture, uh, if you remember the ad of the swastika painted on the garage.

I think I studied that actually in a, in one of my classes, in my master's program as being a very effective ad.

That was, it's one of our best performing ads.

I will say that in our internal testing, this sticky note, uh, performed just as well, um, on, on those metrics.

And so that's why we're so bullish on it.

So we were running Tony a lot.

We were running there, there may, you may be, remember there's one of, uh, bar Mitzvah Isaiah.

You know the name better than I did.

I did my own work.

That one's like deeply Moving to me.

I love that one.

We love that as well.

Um, it it, and it performed very well, though.

We'll say again, Tony and Sticky Note.

Um, from our measures performed even better with our target audience.

It accept me.

I mean, that one's very, Isaiah's, very Jewish.

I mean, there's a lot of Hebrew in that one.

Yes.

And so that was the diet.

That our audience had been receiving and what Snoop and Brady added to it was another element, another chapter, and a way to bring more people in that might have not quite clicked as much or resonated as much.

Based on the more explicitly Jewish ads.

And that's really how we measure ourselves.

It's all about this 140 million that we're going after.

How are we getting them to come along on this funnel with us?

And we needed that as as the next sort of piece of the puzzle.

How effective was that Brady Snoop ad?

So we saw phenomenal growth in social media, and that just is one signal, but social media engagement from our target audience, I think we nearly doubled.

Our followership in one of our handles.

Um.

Uh, what's up with hate, which is, uh, the handle that is particularly focused on younger Gen Z and sort of alpha that's using, uh, faking their age when they sign up for their profiles, uh, kind of folks.

So that we found that it was quite impactful at broadening the conversation, bringing more people into the tent in that way.

And we were, um, quite.

Pleased that, you know, you're quite, you, I'm sure you're familiar with churn, um, churn rate of that audience, of those newly acquired sort of, um, potential allies was extremely low following that.

So, you know, that was one worry that we had transparently.

I, um, I wanna be very candid to you.

We were concerned that we'd get them and then we'd start to show them.

Some of the Jewish stuff, uh, so to speak, and we'd lose their interest, but we were able to sustain their interest.

And so it was a really, really effective sort of entry door to bring, uh, tens of thousands of people in.

Amazing.

So I wanna talk about one more ad in particular.

This is an ad I actually spoke about on my podcast before.

Uh, the, when there are no words, ad and, and my, my reaction to that ad was it wasn't my favorite, probably my least favorite of your ads.

To be candid.

What I didn't like was, you know, one of the examples in it is somebody's getting beat up and it's like, well, when there are no words, you can do the blue square.

And from where I was sitting, I was like, well, when you see someone getting beat up, you should have some words, like there shouldn't be a no word scenario when there's a kid getting beat up, whether he's Jewish or anybody else.

So I would love to hear the thinking and the analytics and you know, what in, what went into that one and was that one of your effective ads or less so, or, or what?

So that, that ad was.

Heavily focused on raising awareness about the frequency and severity of antisemitism.

Um, the, the vast majority of our target audience.

Massively underestimates how much antisemitism there's you.

And I see the a DL reports, you and I know, but they don't.

And so it was really about waking people up, um, but in a way that they would experience.

And so the, the, the intent of that ad was, it wasn't that you necessarily are standing there when the Jewish kid is kicked on the subway or the person is throwing is firebombing, uh, the Jewish community in Boulder, Colorado.

But you're hearing about it.

And, and, and, 'cause this is a common sentiment we see from our audience.

What, what I hear about this, it's, I'm, I'm distraught, I don't know what to do.

And so, but I'm not physically there.

I can't physically, because I'm with you.

If you're physically there, like.

Putting on a blue square is not the thing you should be doing.

Right.

No, no argument from us on that.

Yeah.

Um, but you know, very few people are actually there.

Most people are saying, well, I, what can I, I don't know.

I'm hearing these things, I'm confused.

I don't know what to do.

And we're trying to say, there's an opportunity for you to get more engaged.

There's opportunity.

If you get off the sidelines, you might live somewhere where there hasn't been an anti-Semitic incident.

That makes sense.

That makes more sense to me for sure.

I, I wanna sort of wrap things up by asking sort of what's.

What's coming down the pike?

Like what are, what's sort of next for you all?

What's, what have you been learning even as you're putting together sticky note?

Like where, where are you heading?

The Super Bowl is, was is the kickoff of this campaign?

I mean, that's, that's the interesting thing is it, it feels like it's the, the, the pinnacle or the climax of the campaign, but it's, for us, it's just the beginning.

Um, and you know, not only are we gonna be running this particular ad.

Dozens and dozens and dozens of times over the next couple of of months.

Um, but we're gonna be surrounding it with lots of other activations and other opportunities to just continue to build awareness.

You know, that, that stat, I, I cannot shake that stat that two out of three American Jewish teenagers have personally experienced antisemitism.

Um, when I was out in San Francisco a few days ago, uh uh.

Teenager, I was gonna say his age, but I don't want to, for, for sake of anonymity, um, reached out to me and said that ad sticky note, that's basically what I experienced.

And he said my, to the point that my friends and family reached out to me and said, like, did you, were you in touch with them?

Right?

Like, how did that happen?

Um, uh, and this kid was amazing.

Um, and I was just so, I was like, I, you inspire me.

And he just wanted to thank.

Robert and our organization for, for raising awareness about this and being a voice.

And so that's, that's really what we're, what we're doing.

And so it's gonna be running this out obviously, but it's gonna be figuring out how we can activate locally on the ground, how we can partner with other organizations.

We're in conversations with a lot of Jewish organizations about what can we do together to really, really address the particularly, um, scary.

Rise of antisemitism in high schools, middle schools, colleges, and for, you know, my audience who are generally more well-informed than the 140 million that you're going for.

What is the best way for them to engage or to, to sort of understand what you're doing or be involved in some way?

Like what would you, where would you send them?

I, I'd say, um, be curious and, and try to learn about us.

Try, try not to prejudge based on some assumptions that, uh, you might have about the organization.

Go to our.

Blue Square alliance.org.

Follow us on social media, um, see how you can get involved.

We're always looking for opportunities for folks to support.

If you have ideas, we're, we're welcome to them.

If you have challenges, we're welcome to that as well.

You know, Robert founded this organization and is very, very generously, um, provided an endowment effectively to support our day-to-day operations.

We also have over 30,000 other donors.

Grassroots up to, uh, you know, principal major donors.

Um, and, and that's what helps power this work as well.

And so if anybody felt so inclined to consider, um, supporting this mission in that way, we would, we'd be thrilled to have a conversation, but.

I, I, I'd say, you know, continue to talk about the work, share the feedback that's helpful, that's valuable and, and support all Jewish organizations.

You know, we didn't talk Jonah about the other piece of criticism I think that, that I've seen, which is, um, why are we spending money on anti-Semitism?

Oh.

Versus like, you could be funding Jewish school, Jewish Jewish pride, and the answer to that is a damn not, or, um, right.

And so for, for anybody that's listening, there are.

So many great organizations operating in this space, whether it's your time, your money, or other assets that you can offer.

There's lots of great opportunities to get involved and, and so I would just encourage everybody to get involved.

Yeah, can't be everything to everybody all at once.

Adam, thank you so much.

I know for sure this has been super informative.

I know my audience is gonna appreciate hearing all of this insider info and explanation and uh, I certainly feel that, uh, that 15 mil is in good hands.

And, uh, appreciate all that you guys are doing for us, for the community, and to, to try to create some unity in a, in our very fractured country.

So thanks for the time and thanks for the mission, Jonah.

Thank you.

Thank you for all that you do.

And thank you to all the listeners for all that you do.

It's, it takes all of us.

So thank you.