• by Aaron Baar , December 1, 2014

The U.S. Army has launched its first salvo in a war against its own perception problems. 

Over the weekend, the U.S. Army launched a television commercial that — rather than highlighting the strength that service could give an individual — depicts the military branch as an elite team ushering in positive change throughout the world. The commercial is part of an overall effort to change the Army’s image as the option of last resort into that of a highly educated, highly capable and highly influential institution. 

The commercial, from McCann Worldgroup, likens the Army to a top football team. Amid shots of helmets, gloves and other equipment in a darkened tunnel, a coach gives a rousing pep talk.

“Out on that field today, you will be ready for anything,” the voice says. “I want you all to remember. This is the greatest team you will ever be a part of.” Rather than the gridiron, however, the field the team runs onto is a foreign village, where they meet and interact with local military. A voiceover from longtime Army voice Gary Sinise explains: “There’s important work to be done. And only some able to do it. Can you make the cut?”

“We’re basically repositioning the Army brand as an enterprise brand,” Mark S. Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for marketing and director of the Army Marketing and Research Group, tells Marketing Daily. “The [previous] focus was always on the individual, and in doing so, we’ve ignored how important the Army is to the country.

The new direction was born out of research from more than 32,000 military and non-military consumers asking about the perceptions of the Army versus its reality. Nearly unanimously, Davis says, the perceptions of what people felt the Army ought to be is, in fact, what it is. The problem, he says, was a perception gap. 

“They wanted the Army to be a place where quality people could go and realize their potential,” Davis says. “What they see is it as a place where individuals who couldn’t make it at a fast-food joint can go join the Army.”

The reality, he says, is very different. “The truth is, we have astronauts, engineers, doctors,” Davis says. “We have highly educated, highly specialized individuals. It’s those amazing specialists the American people demand [of its military].”

Thus, the campaign is the “beginning stages” of an all-out effort to change the story from one that emphasizes the Army’s ability to make a strong individuals into one that stress the Army as a place where strong individuals can realize their full potential. 

“The point of this campaign is to bridge where we have been, from an individual-focused advertising sort of thing, to [one of] ‘This institution matters and we want you to be a part of it,’” Davis says. “Our problem has been that we’ve let others define [the Army for] the American people. Our job is to make them see that we are who they want us to be.”

As with most military recruitment efforts, the campaign is targeted not just at the 17- to-21-year-olds who make up the recruitment pool, but also the parents, coaches, clergy and others who help influence their decisions. 

This bridge campaign will include more television spots along the same lines as the one that broke over the weekend. In mid-2015, the Army will continue to evolve the message to highlight the Army as an institution that has been “preserving and executing great things for this country,” Davis says. 

“The intent is to establish a new narrative for the next 50 years,” Davis says.