Brand Israel sells itself to Canada
September 19, 2008 09:41By
Ron Csillag
When business is good, it pays to advertise. When business is bad, you've got to advertise.
The old adage has been taken to heart by Israel - specifically by its outpost here in Toronto, home to Canada's largest Jewish community (180,000 strong) and among the world's most multicultural cities, boasting some 200 ethnic groups.
Toronto will be the testing ground for Brand Israel, a $1 million (£500,000) campaign to shift the Jewish state's image away from grinding conflict to the technological and medical wonders it has given the world.
"We have a great product," says a straight-talking Amir Gissin, the country's Toronto-based consul-general. "We just have lousy marketing."
Gissin and about 100 partners, including some of Toronto's top advertising and branding experts, have devised an effort aimed not at Israel-haters, but at the vast middle ground for whom the country barely registers.
Expected to last from six to 10 months, the campaign "is an attempt to gauge responses around the central concept of relevancy", Gissin told the Brand Israel launch. "We are looking at those who don't know or care."
Gissin himself has gone fishing with the host of a popular television fishing programme to promote angling in Israel, and, plugging into Canadian values, has relentlessly touted Israel's national ice hockey programme.
Consisting initially of ads on billboards and bus shelters, three different posters will showcase decidedly non-traditional images.
One will feature two embracing sari-clad South Asian women, one older, with bindi, and one younger.
"Coronary Stent. Life Saver," pronounces the copy, referring to the device invented by Israeli scientists.
A second visual is of a smiling, handsome black man with his equally appealing son (one presumes).
"Video PillCam, Disease Detector," it states, referring to the revolutionary Israeli pill camera available in 55 countries to track the gastro-intestinal tract.
The third poster, still in development, will feature an Oriental girl and a computer theme. All the ads show a stylised Star of David, and the words "Innovation Israel".
The campaign is expected to extend to radio, television and ethnic newspapers. The ethnic angle is deliberate. Organisers note that the non-white and immigrant sector tend to have values similar to those of Jews, namely, a strong sense of community and family.
The idea, says Gissin, is to tout "the ingenuity of Israel within Canada". But advertising, he stresses, is not the same as branding, which is much broader. "Israel has to decide what it has to present to the world, what it is proudest of - our passion and innovation."
Ultimately, the goal is to create a buzz for Israel in untapped and perhaps forgotten target markets. In any event, "Toronto is not the target," says Gissin. "The target is the world."