The Case
How do you take a story that's three years old - about a religion that's thousands of years old - and make it sexy to reporters...with a shoestring budget of $16,000?
That was the challenge Warschawski Public Relations faced in its efforts last year to spark media interest in the third annual Shabbat Across America event, sponsored by the
National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP).
The NJOP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving North American Jewish continuity in an age in which the number of practicing Jews is declining. By 1999, the NJOP
and Warschawski PR had twice orchestrated Shabbat Across America (SAA) - an event that invited unaffiliated and marginally affiliated Jews across the continent to experience a
traditional Shabbat (sabbath) religious service and festive meal. Given that the event took place in hundreds of locations across the U.S. and Canada, it got great coverage the
first time around. Getting media attention the second time was a feat. The third time would be a long shot.
Tradition And Reform
Warschawski's 1999 objectives remained largely unchanged from previous years: 1) to generate significant SAA participation among non-practicing Jews; 2) to increase the name
recognition and reputation of NJOP and SAA among that target audience, and within national and local Jewish circles; and 3) to increase awareness of the continent-wide Jewish
continuity crisis among non-practicing Jews.
And, as in years past, the agency's budget was thin. Warschawski once again planned to focus its energies on media outlets in the top 10 U.S. Jewish markets - cities like Los
Angeles, Philly and Miami - with hopes that coverage in the big press would trickle down into mid- and small-sized markets.
What differentiated the 1999 strategy from prior years was the hook. Capitalizing on the media's hunger for Y2K dish (after all, it was early 1999), the agency
positioned Jewish assimilation as "The J2K Problem."
"Everyone was talking about the technological implications of the new millennium, but no one was talking about the social, religious or cultural implications," says David
Warschawski, president and founder of the eponymous agency. "Reporters really took an interest in this angle." The J2K problem cast Jewish assimilation as a threat that could
destroy Judaism on this continent in the next century.
Story In The Bag
After piquing journalists' interest with this timely and profound angle (hey, when God's involved, you can be profound), Warschawski and NJOP sealed the deal with a two-pronged
pitch strategy. On Feb. 8, five weeks before the event, interested reporters received a press kit stuffed with the following:
- A release explaining how SAA was key to countering the effects of the J2K problem.
- A fact sheet with hard research and statis-tical data highlighting trends such as the "secularization" of American and Canadian Jews.
- A photo slick illustrating the ritual of Shabbat and explaining its connection to Jewish continuity.
- A case study depicting how one assimilated Jewish man's life was turned around by a positive SAA experience.
- Quotes from and contact information for religious leaders, academicians, authors and other experts.
On March 4 (one week prior to SAA, set for March 12), the agency issued a second press release announcing that more than 75,000 Jews had committed to attend the 1999 event in
over 700 locations - a 100% increase over SAA's inaugural year participation. The number sparked added interest. And this time the agency was armed with a massive database of
participating synagogues, community centers and college Hillel chapters. Regional and smaller market reporters interested in covering the event from a local perspective were
quickly connected with members of their own communities.
Glorious Results
The number of participants in Shabbat Across America doubled by the third year, and the 1999 event scored more than 500 pieces of print coverage, reaching 29.4 million readers.
News about SAA also reached more than 43.4 million TV viewers, and listeners on more than 450 radio stations.
"A number of reporters also latched onto the term'J2K,'" Warschawski says. "We found that religion reporters began using that phrase outside of the NJOP coverage, and referred
to statistics we had supplied in other pieces that they wrote. You really recognize how successful a program is when it gets used beyond the parameters for which it was initially
designed."
(Warschawski PR, 410/318-8200, http://www.warschawskipr.com)