Army Fights to Sell Itself to the Parents of America

[Modem Butterfly]

http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/admark/la-na-armyads22aug22,1,6024991.story?coll=la-headlines-business-advert&ctrack=1&cset=true

As brand manager for the Army's advertising account at Leo Burnett Inc., a Chicago ad agency, DeThorne's job is to sell the Army. And these days, it's a difficult product to sell.

In marketing terms, the Army is a troubled brand. The daily images of violence from Iraq are scaring away potential recruits for the service that has shouldered the largest burden there.

The Army does not expect to meet any of its 2005 recruiting goals for the active, Reserve and National Guard ranks, and Army officials have said that next year the gap is likely to be greater.

This year, DeThorne will spend more than $200 million of the Army's money — the U.S. government's largest advertising contract — to try to reverse that trend and sell the nation on the benefits of military service.

[Modem Butterfly]

1. How the Army decided to brand itself in the first place...

After the Army missed its recruiting goals for several years in the late 1990s, then-Army Secretary Louis Caldera commissioned the Rand Corp. to help find out why the Army was having trouble reaching America's youth.

"That study told us we didn't have anybody in the Army who understood marketing," Caldera said in January 2001. "They told us we didn't have an Army 'brand.' "

In response, the Army signed up Leo Burnett to create a brand.

Immersing themselves in Army culture, members of the Leo Burnett team endured a mini-boot camp in South Carolina and traveled to dozens of military bases in the U.S. and in the war-torn Balkans. DeThorne even jumped out of an airplane with the Army's Golden Knights parachute team.

In early 2001, the Army announced its "Army of One" advertisements, a campaign of individualism that market research showed would appeal to the youth known as Generation Y. The ads carried the theme "212 Ways to Be a Soldier" and focused on individual careers in the military that honed soldiers' skills for life.

[opihimoimoi]

3. For that we paid them $682726009181 72652646657.04????

[Not_Giving_Up]

2. The latst commercials make me gag

Help them find their strength.

Give me a break. The commercials now show the young adult stating that they've found a way to do something meaningful and get money for college.

You can save the college money, and instead buy your child body armor.

[stevietheman]

7. The one about the guy who "works with computers" angers me.

I mean, IT jobs have been decimated in this country, and the army is playing on that to get all these comp sci grads and even guys with years of IT experience (but who now can't find jobs) into the army. It's totally disgusting.

[Not_Giving_Up]

8. That's the plan

They send the jobs away, or just make them go away, leaving no other alternative. You can work at Wal-Mart or you can join the Army.

[Mizmoon]

4. I have a suggestion for the army

tell parents that the government will support their children "in style" for life when and if the kid comes home all mangled and broken.

Oh wait ... it's actually the parents who are stuck with caring for the person. The army hardly even wants to give them a bit of disability ...

never mind.

[fasttense]

5. I wonder why the Army is difficult to sell??

Maybe because the people who buy into the Army are very likely to die? And they would die not protecting the US, not fighting the people who attacked us in 9/11, but they will die fighting so that brush an cheney can make billions of dollars. Yeah, that's a tough sell.

[ohio_liberal]

6. Yeah, and so they're going after the 18 year olds hot and heavy

My neighbor's son just graduated from high school and the recruiters call 3-4 times a day, when they suspect parents aren't home. No matter what he or his parents say, the will not leave him alone.

[unhappycamper]

9. It's hard work selling death and destruction.

Maiming, killing, PTSD, permanent DNA damage are difficult to spin.

Spin this, Ray (CAUTION - the memoryhole pics of our wounded are VERY GRAPHIC):
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery.htm

While DeThorne is at it, he probably should add some insight to the reality on the ground:
http://crisispictures.org/

I suspect :sarcasm: he won't be saying much about depleted uranium. The first article is a must read:
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/11-20/19news03.htm
(from article -> Leuren Monet: Anyone who goes now cannot avoid being contaminated. Anyone. Anyone. Anyone. Everyone who goes to the Middle East and Afghanistan will be contaminated.)
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/11-20/19news04.htm
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/11-20/19news05.htm
(For much more on du, google: depleted uranium )

Sure hope he spins veterans benefits. Perhaps he can tell us why the army is closing Walter Reed hospital. Why did congress have an emergency funding bill for a VA budget shortfall of $1,500,000,000?
Google and spin this, Ray: bush veteran benefits

PTSD is a big deal. I'm collecting links to articles & haven't whittled them down yet to manageable size. In the meantime, google this: ptsd

This war is killing our kids in more ways than you can imagine; it's killing our future.

[gratuitous]

10. Oh goody, the Leo Burnett Agency

They're pretty accustomed to selling death to the American public. It was under their founder that the Leo Burnett Agency repackaged Marlboro into the world's leading brand of cigarettes. Marlboro is so recognizable as a brand, print ads don't even have to mention the name.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Support the Bodybag industry! Donate your kid!

[pocket]

12. send your kid to Thug School !!!

they get a free haircut and their own body bag!