Antisemitism is at an all-time high. In the US and UK anti-Semitic incidents surged to historic levels, increasing 36% and 34% respectively. Meanwhile even in Israel, where Holocaust remembrance plays a pivotal role, it is losing prominence.

If once survivor stories were common– times are changing: fewer survivors remain, and those who are left have to bridge the gap of age, attention and platforms between themselves and Israeli audiences, especially teens who have many screens and worlds to hide in. While getting their attention is difficult in routine, when it comes to Holocaust content, it is almost impossible. As a result, the future generation of Holocaust remembrance is disconnecting.

“Zikaron Basalon”, a NGO focused on creating face-to-face connections with survivors- set out to change this and bring Holocaust remembrance into Gen-Z’s world of content. The way-in: the people they will listen to most, who speak their language - gaming influencers.

In order to create change we knew we had to disrupt gaming culture and embed Holocaust remembrance organically into Gen-Z context. We set out to disrupt the Holocaust Memorial Day, for the first time ever inserting survivor stories into the one place that was left untouched- games.

How? We took over the popular Call of Duty WWII, which depicts authentic Holocaust locations– and recreated history with live testimonies and gameplay. The big idea: teaming up famous gaming influencers (who are Gen-Z’ers themselves) with survivors who told their stories throughout the game scenes.

Thus, the gamers listened to the survivor’s tales and live-streamed a walk-through the game replica of WWII, mapping out their words using the game's images. Basically, we not only brought the stories to TikTok and YouTube, conquering a prominent cultural layer of our audience's world– but brought them to life, giving them a whole new dimension and longevity.

Our insight was simple: we have to tailor Holocaust remembrance as organically and interestingly as possible into young gaming culture. Our objective: disrupt Holocaust Memorial Day and for the first time ever bring into the 24\7 gaming arena real Holocaust survivor testimonials.

The big idea: working closely with the biggest gamers in Israel to take over the one last place Holocaust remembrance has yet to touch. This is a big deal- most Holocaust content is made for adults on “traditional” media platforms (TV, podcasts, radio, newspapers). We decided to use the gamers popular platforms in order to reach Israeli teens in the most organic and authentic way - while creating a ripple effect in mainstream media. Thus, we conducted the biggest disruption Holocaust memorial day has seen in 75 years of Israeli independence, making a splash in the gaming world, the Gen-Z world and the traditional world all at once.

In order to create a totally organic experience- we collaborated with 5 of the biggest Israeli gaming influencers, connecting them to 6 survivors. Leading to the launch, the influencers invited fans to join them on their popular channels (TIKTOK & YouTube) for the special walk-through testimonials. This was backed up with a social takeover of teaser trailers which glimpsed the survivor stories taking over the game.

On the day itself, each influencer live-streamed their emotional meeting- completely taking over the youtube’s gaming category (reaching 1#). Thus, we launched six ~10-min videos that established a huge buzz- more than 40 influencers reposted the project, prime Israeli news outlets picked up the story quickly and more than 150 items were featured in US media news. We also took over more than 1,000 classrooms- reaching 2 million students. Lastly, we are cementing the project in culture: uploading 5 episodes to Amazon Prime Video.

This Memorial Day, we successfully took over Gen-Z culture - turning a non funded NGO project into a whole new experience connecting youth and remembrance.

With over 1.5 million organic views on Memorial Day, we were able to reach 67% of Israeli Gen-Zers in a day. That’s 1.5 million teens organically watching at least one 8-10-min film fully!

The project achieved 8.5M impressions (53% organic), 82M prime global impressions - bringing in a total of 7.2M$ in earned media. On the day, it conquered the #1 spot on youtube’s gaming category (#8 overall).

Furthermore, the power of the project translated into the physical classrooms: 1,500 schools added the project to their curriculum, reaching over 2 million students in one day.

Most importantly, “Zikaron Basalon”, increased website entries by 168% YOY, +183% in brand searches YOY, doubling the number of participants in Zikaron Basalon events on Memorial Day!