Hillel International is a non-profit organization that encourages young adults to celebrate Jewish learning and living, pursue social justice, and connect to their peers and the global Jewish people.
Hillel works with students at more than 550 colleges and universities across North America and around the world and creates lasting connections with students, inspiring and training them to become leaders and build their own communities.
ESM launched the #OwnYourStar social media campaign to encourage Jewish students, community members, and allies to express their Jewish pride amid the rise of anti-semitism.
The ultimate goal of the campaign was to create solidarity and comfort among Jewish college students who are confronting anti-semitism on campus through use of a media plan designed to promote user generated content using the hashtag #OwnYourStar.
Knowing that Hillel’s primary audience consisted of Gen Z college students, we assessed the media consumption habits of those users to inform the campaign’s channel selection and our audience development.
The campaign plan was structured around the ability to test social media channels, custom audiences, creative assets, and tactical approaches against one another.
We approached this campaign by evaluating two key factors:
2. Media Consumption
We then used this information to inform our channel planning and recommendation.
The final media recommendation included both engagement and conversion oriented social tactics across Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook.
The remaining portion of the budget supported mid- to upper-funnel branding channels, including Digital Display (Retargeting) and YouTube.
This campaign was overly successful at achieving Hillel International’s goals. In the span of just five weeks, the campaign generated over 4.8 million impressions and reach over 2.8 million users. Mostly importantly, there were over 2,000 user generate posts that shared the hashtag #OwnYourStar with their unique stories and experiences. Not only did these metrics far exceed our estimates for the campaign, but we were able to really connect and resonate with Gen-Z college students, and encourage them to feel and share why they are proud to be Jewish.
