Many American Jews have seen the commercial that aired during the Super Bowl called “Sticky Note.” If you haven’t seen or heard of it, you can click below to watch the commercial.
Not surprisingly, this ad has generated a lot of controversy within the Jewish community. However, much of that debate ignores who the ad is actually targeting and what it has measurably accomplished.
Most of the loudest critics judge “Sticky Note” as if it were meant to reflect Jewish life back to Jews. They complain that it is a “cliched portrayal of Jewish weakness,” that it shows a Jew being humiliated by a schoolyard slur while a tall, confident non-Jew “saves” him, and that it feels disconnected from how many teens actually encounter antisemitism today—online and in the context of Israel rather than scribbled notes in a hallway. Add in the eye-popping Super Bowl price tag, and it becomes easy to dismiss the whole project as an embarrassing, costly misfire.
But that interpretation begins with the wrong assumption. The ad was not aimed at us. As Blue Square Alliance president Adam Katz told eJewishPhilanthropy, the commercial “wasn’t trying to appeal to a Jewish audience.” With over 100 million viewers watching the game, the target was what he describes as an audience that is “unengaged — and in many cases uninformed — about antisemitism,” people who “lack awareness, empathy, and motivation to act.” In other words, the ad is not trying to capture the full complexity of Jewish teen life. It aims to give non-Jews, who rarely think about antisemitism, a simple, memorable script for what allyship could look like.
Seen through that lens, the tall gentile kid in the hallway is not a savior; he is a model. He notices an antisemitic act, recognizes it as wrong, and does something visible and supportive in response. He covers the “Dirty Jew” note with a blue square, tells his classmate not to listen to the haters, and then wears the same blue square himself as they walk off together. For a Jewish viewer already steeped in conversations about power and self-reliance, that dynamic may grate. For a non-Jewish viewer who does not see themselves as antisemitic and does not know what to do when they witness antisemitism, it offers an easy, non-threatening on-ramp: you are allowed to see this, to care about it, and to stand with Jews when it happens.
The content choices also rely on real data, not just intuition. The campaign highlights research showing that the slur “dirty Jew” appeared roughly 500 million times on social media over three years, with usage of that phrase increasing by 174 percent. That is why the insult in the commercial is so blunt. It isn’t trying to earn points for subtlety at a Jewish film festival; it aims to directly tell an unengaged viewer: this isn’t just a relic of the 1930s, this language is everywhere right now.
And importantly, we don’t have to guess if this framing works on the people it’s intended for. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Antisemitism Research conducted a randomized controlled experiment with about 1,000 viewers between February 5–6, showing one group the Blue Square ad and a control group an unrelated commercial. According to the ADL, those who saw the antisemitism ad were significantly more likely to say that antisemitism is a serious problem, more likely to say they would interrupt friends or family who make antisemitic comments, and more motivated to fight antisemitism. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who has spent years warning about rising antisemitism, was among the first prominent Jewish leaders to publicly praise the message of the spot even as social media piled on.
You might disagree with the aesthetics of “Sticky Note.” You might wish the Jewish kid looked stronger, or that the scenario represented campus politics instead of school bullying, or that the budget had gone toward scholarships or security guards instead of a 30-second Super Bowl ad. All of those are valid debates for a community that cares deeply about its future. But if we take seriously what Katz says about the intended audience, and if we consider what the ADL’s data show about the impact on that audience, then much of the passionate Jewish criticism begins to miss the point.
Our internal question often is: does this ad make us feel seen, proud, and powerful? The better question, in this case, is: does this ad move non-Jews who were previously disengaged one step closer to seeing antisemitism as their problem too? On that measure, the evidence suggests that “Sticky Note” did exactly what it set out to do—though it may not play perfectly inside the Jewish echo chamber.
