03/11/07
Text: Scott Indrisek
Cruel Numbers
In November of 2006, the U.S. Army retired the generally reviled Army of One tagline, a slogan that Harper’s had once cheekily referred to as being “aimed at alienated losers.” McCann-Erickson took over Army marketing from the firm of Leo Burnett, scoring a plum $200 million to hawk what, in an age of Iraq (itself rebranded as an old-fashioned civil war) and over 3,000 American mortalities as of this writing, is becoming a less and less desirable product. With recruitment down for obvious reasons (and a Democratic Congress who might have yanked the Yankees out of our Iraqi adventure by the time you read this), the Army is doubtlessly eager to see its new image generate concrete results in the form of the 80,000 fresh bodies in uniform required annually—they’ve earmarked 1.35 billion American tax dollars over the next five years to make it so. (If this sounds steep, keep in mind that operating costs for the war have been as high as $195 million, daily). Army Strong is now the blunt two-word catcall being used to entice young men and women into service, and it comes backed by polished video clips directed by Samuel Bayer. If the name’s not familiar, he was previously best known for crafting Nirvana’s seminal “Nevermind” video in 1991, along with the WWII-inflected footage for Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September’s Gone.” (In an added taste of sweet irony, Forbes reports that Courtney Love recently sold rights to Cobain songs for a CSI: Miami episode about—ahem—“evil military recruiters.”)
Army Strong is, by military marketing standards, a long-winded exercise in pedestrian tedium—it begins by citing a dictionary definition of “strength” culled from Webster’s, followed by a litany of strength-based platitudes set to a gushingly hyperbolic classical score. Along the way we see men and women driving tanks, building bridges and walking with small (evidently Iraqi) children. Missing are the amped rock soundtracks of yesteryear, the pumped-up quick-cuts of brawny dudes leaping out of helicopters loaded down with enough heavy metal to fill a Terminator sequel. The tone and tact might differ, but the Army is still addressing potential recruits in the language of personal improvement with a dab of national sacrifice.
“What [the Army] found early on in the 1970s when they started doing marketing research is that young people didn’t want to join the Army because they were afraid of losing their individuality,” explains Beth Bailey, a history professor at Temple University and author of an upcoming book on military marketing. She explains the way in which the 1973 shift from a draft to volunteer-based Army created a unique challenge: the need to sell enlistment as a desirable ambition rather than a mandatory obligation. “The initial campaign they started was Today’s Army Wants To Join You, which was meant to turn Uncle Sam Wants You on its head.” The new slogan lasted from 1971–73, when it was replaced by the enigmatic Join the People Who’ve Joined the Army (73–79), a stint that included a TV spot in which a smirky young pimp-cum-enlistee tells each of his many girlfriends, “I wanted you to be the first to know…I’ve joined the Army.” This was followed by the blunt, idiot-proof, This is the Army (79–81) and 1981–2001’s reigning champ, Be All You Can Be.
