Yoel's Lemonade Stand: Marketing Is Every Decision You Make

A prominent Jewish youth organization recently demonstrated something that would make every CMO in America break out in a cold sweat: their most expensive marketing campaign was being undone by a single operational decision. Or rather, their refusal to make one.

Parents had entrusted this organization with their children for a summer program in Israel. Geopolitical tensions have, of course, escalated. Under normal circumstances, the situation demanded a clear choice: proceed with the trip or cancel it. Instead, the organization chose something far more damaging than either option: extended deliberation.

Days passed. Then weeks. Communications became sporadic, hedged with conditional language, tehillim, and probability assessments. Their most recent update promised a "clear decision" six days before departure. Six days. Even God had more time to create the world.

They said they were working hard. And I have no doubt that they are. But what they failed to realize was that each delay sent a message louder than any advertisement they'd ever run: We are an organization that gambles with ambiguity when lives hang in the balance.

This is the brutal truth about marketing that most organizations never grasp.

The Fifth P

Every business school teaches the "4 Ps" of marketing. Product, Price, Place, Promotion. What they don't teach is the fifth P: Performance under pressure.

How you handle a crisis markets your competence. How you communicate uncertainty markets your leadership. How you prioritize competing interests markets your values.

In this case, the youth organization faced what marketing and behavioral economists refer to as "The Rule of Delayed Ambiguity." Simply put: The longer the delay in your decision, the more you market your indecision. In the case of these summer programs, parents began their own calculations of alternative summer plans, adjusted their schedules, and managed their children's expectations delicately.

In other words, the longer you wait, the faster trust erodes with each passing hour. Not because of what the organization says, but because of what it failed to decide.

Why Silence Breeds Fear

The reason for this is built into human nature. In moments of genuine crisis, silence doesn't buy you time. It breeds fear. Uncertainty doesn't preserve options. It eliminates them. And every day of indecision tells parents exactly what kind of organization they are dealing with. Not through billboards or brochures, but through the most powerful marketing channel of all: behavior when it matters.

As far as I see it, this institution only has two paths open to it right now:

Path A: Make a clear decision based on available intelligence, communicate it decisively, and accept the consequences.

Path B: Delay while hoping for certainty that would never come, creating a leadership vacuum that parents fill with their wild imaginations.

It doesn't matter what decision they make. If they choose Path A, they will be looked upon as a trusted organization.

However, if they continue to choose Path B and wait until six days before departure to make any definitive decision, they will discover that when you don't decide, you've decided. When you don't communicate clearly, you've communicated chaos.

The Real Marketing Department

Because the parents watching this unfold aren't evaluating the organization's summer program brochures or testimonial videos. They're evaluating something far more fundamental: whether this is an organization that can be trusted with what matters most.

Every hesitation is a headline. Every delayed communication is an advertisement for incompetence. And the most expensive marketing campaign can't repair trust that operational indecision has destroyed.

This youth organization spent years building its brand through carefully crafted messaging and amazing experiences. And now they have the opportunity to destroy it in weeks through carefully avoided decision-making.

At this point in time, the situation presents itself with stark simplicity:

Either this institution possesses intelligence indicating the trip can proceed safely, or it does not.

And if uncertainty still clouds their judgment at this late hour, then uncertainty itself should become their answer.

No parent entrusts their child to an organization that gambles with ambiguity when the stakes are measured in young lives.

Every choice is a message. Every delay is a decision. Every moment of leadership is marketing.