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Recruiting Posters, Slogans and Commercials [Merged]

Agree w/ everything you said Infanteer. What‘s that about 3 suicides?
 
Here‘s a comment from a former RSM:

We have now learned that the DND is going to spend 15 million dollars in their new recruiting campaign to attract recruits into the service. The recruiting material is of the benign type that I previously mentioned. "No violence please we are Canadians soldiers".

Canadian Forces invest $15.2M to fill out ranks
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20010629/605334.html


The posters are soo politically correct (25% ethnic, 25% female} The ads depict all the gee whiz stuff you can do in the service. A small piece in the corner actually shows a weapon.. According to the article this campaign was run by a focus group (II think that is the correct spelling.. This ‘focus‘ group agreed that the programme would work and we will get an increase in enlistments. (?)

After the announcement other groups expressed some disagreement and thought it would not work and was a waste of money. Time will tell. You can review their comments at;

Ads likely to fail: military analyst
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20010630/606940.html
 
I thought this Halifax Herald editorial was ... interesting:

Monday, July 2, 2001 - The Halifax Herald Limited

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A word or two



We told you so

Years ago, when military downsizing, funding cuts and morale problems all began to hit home, concerns were expressed about recruitment and retention of military personel.

Last week, it was reported that Canada‘s Armed Forces intend to increase their mandatory retirement age from 55 to 60 years of age.

Why? Because there has been such a poor response to recruiting efforts, and so many jobs already eliminated, and so many people have opted to leave on their own, that there are no longer enough people to staff the Forces.

Ottawa intentionally trimmed the Forces, at an all-time high of about 100,000 Canadians in the 1960s, down to about 58,000 as part of the budget cuts that began in the early- to mid-1990s.

Now, Canada finds itself without enough Canadians who believe there‘s no life like it, and choose to exist in some other type of life.

Meanwhile, the peacekeeping commitments have drained resources and forced the Department of National Defence to increasingly lean on members of reserve units, with less detailed training, to accept international assignments.

So the retirement age will be moved upward, in the hopes of keeping, for a few years longer, the well-trained sailors, soldiers and flyers we already have.

We told you so.
 
I think recruiting campaigns which try and gloss over the reality of an infantrymen‘s job
can only lead to recruits unwilling to do their real job. The role of infantry is to close with
and destroy the enemy. Not to have fun and exciting job oppurtunities in the Canadian
Forces as a recent advertisment on TV stated. I plan to join the CF as an infantrymen
and I know the reality of the situation. In combat you will be called upon to fight, and
very possibly be killed. If this reality isn‘t mentioned at all in recruiting, and no mention is
given to personal sacrifice and immense personal and phsycial challenge the wrong people
will join. I‘m prepared to live in horrible conditions on little sleep for weeks in real field
operations. But is everyone else planning on joining prepared for that? If basic becomes
weaker and training overall becomes more lax our forces will lose any resemblance of a
fighting edge. As a small military force we should be making up for our smaller numbers
by putting out better soldiers from our training programs. A smaller number of dedicated and focused soldiers can equal the effeciency of a larger number of soft and unenchanted
soldiers. I hope the standards remain high, and the recruitment campaigns remain true
to reality so when I join I‘ll be bombarded with intense training, but have fellow trainees
who I can rely on. To that goal training can turn out newer soldiers more experienced
ones can count on to carry their load and perform their role in operations
 
I haven‘t seen any of the new ads on TV yet...has anyone seen one of them yet? Wondering if they‘ll be effective...
 
I wonder how the focus groups work.

Do they gather together a sample of people and ask them for impressions? Do they screen out people who would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a CFRC to be conscripted? Do they gather a sample of fairly new soldiers to determine what might have appealed to them to help them decide to join?

In short, did we ask the right people what they thought?
 
Excellent point, Brad - the focus groups are somewhat similar to computers (i.e. garbage in, garbage out).

A while back, the marketing braintrust was convinced (duped?) into believing the public thought of the CF as "Proud, Proven, Professional" - however, in the same vein as a consultant tells you the time using your own watch, it should have been noted the focus groups included CF members who wanted to be thought of as professional (and thus, the result was skewed).

Over and over again, I keep looking at the American example (since they are our closest ally) - the US Army has been having problems meeting their recruiting quota for about four years - on the other hand, the US Marines have met their recruiting quota for the past 54 months! Hmmm ... didn‘t some rocket scientist marketing genius come up with "An Army Of One", while the Marines have stuck to the tried and true "The Few, The Proud, The Marines"????

Ya know, getting back to basics is not necessarily a bad thing (contrary to what the consultants and voodoo marketing witch doctors would have us believe).

If we‘re trying to recruit soldiers, then our advertising should attract soldiers. Ditto for sailors and airmen. However, if we‘re trying to attract employees, then our recruiting will have a different flavour (and we shouldn‘t be so surprised when our recruits behave more like employees than soldiers).

Here‘s a few favourites for comparison:

Join the Army. Stand On Guard for Canada.
It‘s not a job, it‘s an adventure.
Nobody wants to fight, but somebody has to know how.
We do more before breakfast than most people do all week.
Twice the Citizen - Join the Reserves.

Dileas Gu Brath,
M.B. :cdn:
 
The television and prints ads aren‘t supposed to start until the fall according to DNet. For now, the splashy ads remain as the cartoons before the feature presentation.
 
I don‘t care what anybody says, but the best recruiting tool is still word of mouth. You know what you do and what the "hooks" are. However everyone‘s moral has been so low it has been hard to be positive. So start talking it up again and the flow should slowly start again. (and we would save $15 million, money better spent on 105mm HOW ammo.)
 
This reply is not really about the ad‘s but about the recruting site. It‘s super flashy and it makes you think we have the best funded military in the world. There are a couple things I noticed. In the NEWS section (check it out and see) they have a picture of Col. Kenward leading a parade of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Now this to me seems like a huge misrepresentation, maybe Im wrong but, why are they using flashy pictures of a disbanded regiment to entice new recruits??, If that isnt false advertising I dont know what is.


Just a thought
 
NDHQ lying? Ad agencies lying? Preposterous.

*please note the sarcasm now dripping onto the floor* :eek:
 
Why don‘t people call them on it or go to the media?, what would the government do??
 
when i went to see a movie tonight,
during the previews an ad‘s i saw the new recruiting ad for the army, navy and air force.
that ad was visually astounding because of all the things you hear about the cdn army/navy/airforce this showed every single one of the great things about the millitary.
(at the end of the ad it showed the new recruiting sologan. "Strong! Proud!")

the group of friends i was with were extremely impressed and were commenting on how they were gonna join the reserves in a coupla years.
 
Originally posted by echo:
[qb]when i went to see a movie tonight,
during the previews an ad‘s i saw the new recruiting ad for the army, navy and air force.
that ad was visually astounding because of all the things you hear about the cdn army/navy/airforce this showed every single one of the great things about the millitary.
(at the end of the ad it showed the new recruiting sologan. "Strong! Proud!")

the group of friends i was with were extremely impressed and were commenting on how they were gonna join the reserves in a coupla years.[/qb]
 
the army needs to spend less on ads and more on good training and kit :cdn:
 
Saw one of the ads at the movie theatre last night.

Although it was out of focus (IS there such a thing as a projectionist anymore???? -- and I know, they up-res the ads to 35mm, but it was more than that, I‘m in the biz and know!), the ad was outstanding.

Kudos to the agency that created it. My wife was ready to enlist right then and there. Sensitive to some of the comments I‘ve heard from others, I specifically looked for kit and equipment. I saw none that is not in use today.

It was a great mix of Army, Navy and Air Force hi-speed, cool-factor gear and worked across all three elements. There were reserve Army capbadges and headress in evidence throughout. The music was well done, and the editing was stirring. Even the tag line works: Strong. Proud.

Well done, DND.
 
Technically, I suppose there are reservists who have seen/used the equipment portrayed.

I wonder how to deal with the retention issue once recruits learn the difference between the vision and the reality of a typical training weekend or one-week concentration.
 
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