Back To School

Hillel International, a non-profit that encourages young adults to celebrate Jewish learning and living, pursue social justice, and connect to their peers and the global Jewish people, celebrates its centennial in 2023. As Hillel approached 100 years, Jewish community and identity is evolving, and there was a need to show the world how Hillel is meeting the times. A new brand idea - “All Kinds of Jewish” - was created to capture Hillel’s radically inclusive, energetic and modern spirit. This new brand identity was launched in August of 2022 as students returned to school. As a result, the brand sought to develop a comprehensive paid media strategy in order to:

1. Roll out the campaign effectively during the August back-to-school period, and;

2. To sustain momentum around the brand during the next pivotal phase of its growth, through the Centennial in August of 2023 and beyond.

The ‘Back to School’ launch campaign ran in August 2022. ESM created custom channel mixes for the audience personas “Unengaged Students” and “Prospective Supporters” to promote Hillel’s revamped brand voice to college students, and drive donations from alumni, parents of students, and existing donors. The goal of the campaign was to promote Hillel’s brand launch, increasing engagement, donations, and total supporters.

The ‘Back to School’ campaign ran across Tik Tok, Instagram and Snapchat with the goal of driving digital and on-campus engagement. The campaign largely favored students, with 80% of the budget focused toward that persona. However, the campaign ran on Facebook and Instagram to reach prospective supporters.

In total, we tracked 24,625 page views, 37 donations, and 87 newsletter sign-ups generated by the campaign. Among students, Facebook and Instagram generated the highest reach, while Snapchat attributed to the highest overall rate of website visitation with over 13,000 swipe-us. The campaign produced 8.5 million impressions through both the unengaged students and prospective supporters audiences combined. In addition to serving as the first campaign run with the new branding and messaging, this initiative also served as the baseline for performance for all subsequent Centennial media projects.