The advertising dictum to always show the product was violated this month by an orthodox practitioner. The new campaign by the Jewish-oriented Mount Sinai Memorial Parks & Mortuaries features a billboard showing a lox-covered bagel and sushi rolls but no mention of the sponsor until motorists reach a follow-up billboard.
The campaign offers one example of how to reach a niche market through a mass medium while selling a sensitive product. Jews constitute less than 5 percent of the adult population in the Los Angeles and Simi Valley markets where Mount Sinai has its cemeteries. Jewish consumers who need funeral services are a sliver of that target population, and the subject of death doesn’t lend itself to mass marketing.
“The inspiration for taking this direction came from research we commissioned that told us many Jewish people believe that Jews in interfaith marriages, their spouses and children cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery that simply by virtue of their marital choices, they would be ineligible,” said Len Lawrence, chief executive at Mount Sinai. “We produced this campaign to set the record straight and extend the welcome mat to those members of our multi-generational target audience who have felt cut off from Judaism by their family circumstances.”
Other billboards in the campaign show a yarmulke paired with a baseball cap, and latkes next to French fries. They all carry the tagline: “If They’re Part of Your Family, They’re Part of Our Family.”
The campaign was produced by GSS Communiqations Inc. in Los Angeles. It is currently running in the San Fernando, Simi and Conejo valleys and in West Los Angeles. The campaign joins others that successfully violated the show-the-product rule, including the “Got Milk” campaign from Goodby Silverstein in San Francisco.
Savvy Strategy
Since launching in May, Savvy Miss has carved out a cozy little space for itself on the Internet. The Los Angeles-based Web site averages 250,000 page views and 50,000 unique visitors per month by appealing to what it calls “intellectually curious, fun-loving women.”
Women make up more than half of the overall online audience and they make 60 percent of online purchases, according to a study last year by research firm eMarketer. “The retail segments where women regularly spend the most money are the same ones experiencing the largest online growth,” the study found, making the female audience a prime target for marketers.
Savvy Miss offers a California casual alternative to iVillage, the dominant Web destination for women with 14 million unique visitors per month. The New York-based iVillage takes its cues from traditional women’s magazines with stories about holiday toys, lists of favorite recipes and a blog by Meredith Vieira, co-anchor of “Today.”
Meanwhile, Savvy Miss talks about relationships, college life and career decisions in a clear focus on its target demo of 18- to 35-year-old females.
To bring women to the site, SavvyMiss.com headlines interviews with famous femmes. Past subjects have included “Sex & the City” author Candace Bushnell, L.A.-based attorney Gloria Allred and cancer-surviving contestant Diem Brown of MTV’s “Fresh Meat.” The cadre of dating columnists includes E News anchor Giuliana DePandi.
In terms of media strategy, Miss Savvy follows the conventional model of trying to shave off the younger segment of iVillage’s established audience. As for an exit strategy, it could do worse than follow the older site’s example: In May NBC Universal paid $600 million to acquire iVillage.
Thinking Online
Given the precipitous drops in circulation at several of its Southern California newspapers over the past year, the agreement by MediaNews Group Inc. and Yahoo Inc. to share ads on the giant search engine’s classified pages probably makes sense.
Dean Singleton’s MediaNews owns five L.A. County daily papers, including the Daily News and Long Beach Press-Telegram. Under the deal, advertisers who buy help-wanted ads in the local newspaper can post them on Yahoo’s HotJobs service without charge.
Yahoo’s overall agreement involves seven newspaper publishers with almost 150 papers nationwide.
Meet the New Boss
The acquisition of Texas-based Clear Channel Communications by a group of private equity firms, and the simultaneous announcement that the company would sell 42 TV stations and 448 radio stations, will have no effect on the L.A. media market.
At least that’s the party line, for now.
“None of the L.A. properties are getting sold, and essentially that means no impact,” said a spokeswoman for the company.
Clear Channel runs 10 radio stations from its facilities in Burbank facilities, including KBIG-FM (104.3) and KIIS-FM (102.7).
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at
[email protected]
, or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
