The intention of the campaign was to create allies who would post and share our symbol of fighting antisemitism.

The “Blue Square” movement wouldn’t exist without screens to put it on, be it video, OOH, or social. Media dimensionalized the 2.4% of U.S. Jewish population in comparison to the 55% of religious hate crimes this group endures. By integrating into live programming hosted by renowned top US celebrities, media drove an important piece of authenticity and influence. Through the media, influential voices started speaking out about antisemitism in ways they hadn't before.

For people to defend Jews, they first need to realize Jews need defending.

The FCAS campaign objective was to spread awareness of antisemitism, beyond the Jewish community, and gain support from non-Jewish allies.

According to data compiled by the FBI, the number of incidents nearly tripled between 2013 and 2021. Yet most people outside the Jewish community were not aware of the scale of Jewish hate.

We investigated the issue, through a quantitative study among people all over the US, across different regions, religions, and occupations.

Our findings were startling. Over 52% of U.S. adults 18+ do not believe "antisemitism is a big problem," and 45% believe that Jewish people are “more than capable of handling issues of antisemitism on their own.”

The media insight was clear: we needed to enlist top media partners, who share the FCAS values, to provide national reach with impactful and disruptive ideas.

How do you get people to care about a problem they barely believe exists? Make it impossible to ignore, and impossible to argue with. We thread the strategy right into the creative execution, using data to show the simple math that Jewish people cannot fight antisemitism without support from non-Jews

To contextualize the small size of the population, we used a blue square to takeover 2.4% of all screens. It first appeared, unannounced, during a live broadcast of The Voice. As people began to notice the blue square and wonder what it represented, we followed its appearance on screen with our ad, explaining Jews are 2.4% of the population, yet are victims of 55% of religious hate.

The 🟦 appeared on other tv shows, networks, OOH, and social -- quickly going from just a visualization of the problem to a symbol of advocacy already on every smartphone.

2.4% of the population can’t combat 55% of the hate on their own.

We needed to build allies.

To do that, we didn’t need to connect with Jews. We needed media to connect with non-Jews. We called our target Apathetics, because they tended to know about antisemitism, but don’t think it’s a problem; or they think Jews can handle the problem on their own. Our strategy was simple - we needed to get Apathetics to move from apathy to empathy to action.

To do this, we needed our media partners to be allies too, and we set three strict criteria for our media allies. 1) They needed to go beyond running ads, and speak out on behalf of their programming 2) They needed to match our investment with incremental, donated media weight, and 3) their talent needed to authentically support our cause, instead of being paid to do so.

The execution had to create impact and be simple. We needed to dimensionalize how easily antisemitism goes unnoticed.

Our 🟦 first showed up, unannounced on the Today Show, taking up 2.4% of screens. Many viewers didn’t even notice it. Proving our point - until show talent called attention to the 🟦, explaining how disproportionate 2.4% is to the rising 55% of Jewish hate crimes.

While talent like The Voice’s Carson Daly delivered FCAS messaging, our 🟦 appeared over programming. We replicated this integration across NBCUniversal properties "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen," and the Daytime Emmy show "The Kelly Clarkson Show.”

Since 70% of Jews experience hate online, we also prompted users to add the 🟦 (always representing 2.4% of any screen) onto their social profiles and posts. 114 non-paid social influencers fueled the conversation with support and shared experiences with hate and intolerance.

Massive reach

--5B media impressions (3.98B earned)

--1,765 earned media stories

--#StandUptoJewishHate🟦 trended organically on Twitter 2x during launch week

--Engagement rate on TikTok +510% higher than platform average

Immediate, meaningful action

--130,000+ requests for 🟦 pins

--5,500+ unsolicited donations

--854k+ visits to www.standuptojewishhate.org

Behavioral shift among “Apathetics” directly linked to our campaign:

--33% increase in likelihood to speak up on behalf of Jewish people

--19% increase in agreement that Jews are victims of a disproportionate amount of hate and need help

--11% increase in agreement that doing nothing when hearing / seeing antisemitism is not okay

Groundswell of support

--125,000+ public social mentions

--113 unpaid posts from government leaders like US Senator Chuck Schumer, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, and celebrities Tom Brady, Meek Mill, Jon Bon Jovi, Julianne Moore, and Steve Van Zandt.

--Entered into Congressional records by U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer

Between existing allies and lost-cause haters, we identified a sizeable group, about 52% strong, who we named “the Apathetics”. Those are the people we focused on. They are the silent majority who didn't see themselves as antisemitic. However, a recent study from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 85% of Americans believe at least one anti-Jewish trope.

That signaled how many people are unaware that comments like “Jews are rich”, “Jews are great with money” are not trivial, but expressions of antisemitism. We aimed to educate people on the problem, depict real acts of antisemitism at various scales, and show the genuine anguish and heartbreak the Jewish community experiences. We needed to broaden the aperture of what antisemitic behavior means, and the impact it has to rally people towards change.

1 "Antisemitic Attitudes in America: Topline Findings," Anti-Defamation League, 01/12/23, https://www.adl.org/resources/report/antisemitic-attitudes-america-topline-findings).