Advertising in the chareidi press was up during the past year
while advertising in the general press declined, according to
figures released by Ifat Advertising Monitoring. Lacking
other forms of media — which have been making off with
large segments of the advertising market in recent years
— the religious press stood its ground and even rose 20
percent in real ad placements.
The cellular industry led the advertising charts in the
chareidi community during the past year with $1.4 million
spent on advertising being a 132 percent increase in
religious sector advertising. Led by Partner and Cellcom the
cell-phone industry managed to supersede the housing
industry, which posted a 14 percent decrease in advertising.
Last year's figures were depressed because of the voluntary
ban on cell phone advertising during the campaign to force
the companies to offer a basic talk cell phone service
without content.
In advertising for apartment projects, Heftziba and Kiryat
Degel HaTorah topped the rankings, while Shefa Shuk led in
the retail category. Other heavy advertisers included the
dairy and clothing industries followed by banks, healthcare
funds and book publishers.
Ifat's figures might even be of interest to sociologists in
light of the significant differences in advertising trends.
Categories like housing, dairy products, books, healthcare
funds and travel agencies are dominant in the religious
sector, whereas cars, electrical appliance chains, credit
cards and furniture lead in the general sector —
categories that do not even break into the upper tenth of
advertising in the religious sector.
"This is an important social indicator that characterizes the
offerings of the various media and cultural differences,"
explains Nati Yakobi, director of Ifat Advertising
Monitoring. Upon discovering the sector's potential certain
advertisers decided to put the brunt of their efforts into
religious sector advertising — most notably Unilever,
which slashed its general advertising budget and nearly
doubled it in the religious sector.
