Israel International Publicity & PR . It’s time to take this seriously
Israel is a strong brand, with clear characteristics, product advantages and quite a few weaknesses stemming mainly from Israel political status and the hostile environment in which It lives. Time and time again, Israel finds Itself defeated in the PR and Propaganda arena.
How can this be explained?
1. There is no central management and a structured and orderly plan of Israel’s marketing and publicity activity. Every propaganda move by Israel looks like attacking sporadic opportunities rather than part of long-term strategic thinking.
2. Misunderstanding the really important target audiences. In terms of public relations, Israel is fighting yesterday’s wars, instead of thinking about the target audiences that will determine the image status in the medium term. There is no micro-segmental strategy as the digital age requires, there is no thinking about developing relationships with strategic audiences, there is no proper use of digital arenas, especially social networks around the world, and there is no real construction of brand promoters that live online and can minimize the impact of being a small nation.
3. There is no clear strategy that can serve as the main anchor for all activities and activists
4. The Israeli media forces completely ignore the phenomenon of the “anger spiral” that characterizes the system of user involvement in the digital age. Advocacy in digital arenas cannot ignore the fact that the communication structure of a message source and many recipients has given way to a structure of many to many — we are all sources, we are all recipients, we are all influenced by other people (even if we do not know them) much more than we relate to messages coming from traditional sources.
Israel’s situation in 2023 requires consideration of the three main strategies in the field of international publicity:
- Incitement strategy — This is a long-term strategy that advocates diverting the media and public spotlight from the usual issue identified with Israel (security and the army) to other issues with practical and media value (high-tech, culture, agriculture, etc.). This is a long-term strategy and is not necessarily relevant to the time of war.
- Justification strategy: This is the stage in which Israel finds itself during the first weeks after the beginning of the war. This strategy is based on visualizing the source of Israel’s decisions. In other words, creating shock from the events of October 7 in order to justify any move that will come by the State of Israel.
- Intimidation strategy — In the case of the State of Israel, it is necessary to explain to the Western world how dangerous the existence of Hamas-ISIS is for them. The terror groups of Islamic Nazism are already found in England, France, Holland, Italy and the United States. There is already enough evidence for this. There are countless videos that represent this scary problem. Now it is our responsibility to spread these messages and content everywhere. The goal is to cause the governments of Western countries to renounce the Islamic masses in their country and begin a significant process of expulsion or denial of entry. In the United States and England, it is possible to begin by denying the student visas of thousands of Muslims who infest universities and spread Islamic terror from there.
Three things that need to be done immediately in order to implement the chosen strategy:
Establishing one professional entity that will lead all Israeli marketing activity in the digital arena. Sounds trivial but currently doesn’t exist. This entity will manage digital activity in all its branches: social networks, content-based marketing, influencer marketing, search engine marketing, guerrilla activity, public relations activity and the establishment of pro-Israel brand promoter (it is not difficult to find them in the United States, Europe, the Far East and South America)
Recruiting brand supporters and supporters of Israel. It is very important to locate them on social networks and provide them with enough materials (preferably video) that they will use on a daily basis .
Consistent work in the area of the spiral of emotions in networks and other digital arenas. Israeli presence in all activity of surfers’ comments and support in order to turn the spiral of anger into a spiral of support and appreciation for Israel. The barren PR work of companies and countries should focus on improving SPOQ (Social Proof Of Quality).
