Advertising and public relations managers are often called upon to help companies that have fallen into an image crisis. Public opinion is turning against them, criticism is mounting, and more and more negative publications are appearing about them. These companies are seeking a way out of the crisis.
After a thorough examination, recommendations will be made. Sometimes the solutions will be an innovative advertising campaign, an original public relations move, or the recruitment of popular presenters. But sometimes the professionals will say to the company owners: Dear friends, you must improve the product, because the product itself is causing you the greatest harm.
No amount of advertising or explanatory tricks will change the negative impression created by customers following their experience with the product.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
What will you explain?
The Haredi public is very sensitive to its image. It serves as a target for hostility. Its diversity and unique customs attract arrows of ridicule and slander. It is forced to fight for its basic rights. Every budgetary item thrown at it receives a barrage of criticism, accompanied by slander and derogatory expressions.
In the past, attempts were made to build an appropriate information system that would provide answers to questions, refute false stories, complain in the right places about violations of ethics and media decency, and initiate steps that would strengthen the positive image. Such initiatives did indeed bring great benefit, and it is a pity that they did not manage to last long, grow stronger, and become factors of permanent influence.
There is no doubt that proper, intensive, and smart work will bear fruit. It may not immediately affect those whose eyes are blinded by hatred, but there are more than enough people who, when exposed to points of light and the other side of the coin, will change their thinking and approach. Indeed, this gauntlet is waiting for someone to rise up and pick it up.
And yet, we must admit with sorrow and pain that no information system will be able to cope with the difficult scenes seen in recent weeks. The general public stands in astonishment at the sight of large crowds who insist on violating life-saving guidelines, encouraging massive infection with the virus and raising the level of morbidity in the entire country. What will you explain? What 'other side' can you show?
To be an example and role model
True, the vast majority are careful and vigilant, and there are communities that adhere to the rules even more strictly than the Ministry of Health's requirements. True, the permission to hold mass demonstrations while limiting prayers and studies in yeshivahs is infuriating and outrageous. And it is still inconceivable to see significant groups disregarding the precautionary rules and causing more morbidity, more increases in the number of ventilators, and, to our hearts' sorrow, more deaths. These sounds and sights cannot be explained!
Try to see things from the perspective of the dedicated medical teams in the COVID-19 wards. They don't see their children, exhausted, collapsing to take care of yet another patient. Then they see a large public that disregards the guidelines and cares about providing them with more and more work.
Go 'explain' it.
Those who care about image, those who care about the honor of God, the honor of those who study and practice Torah - let them work to change the 'product', that is, to change behavior. Let no more such sights be seen and no more such voices be heard. On the contrary, let God-fearing Jews be an example and model of caution in protecting one's life.
This will be a true sanctification of heaven.
