Business Week reports that the U.S. Army will rely more on “public relations” than TV advertising to meet its declining recruiting numbers. This will include 15 televised “town hall meetings” where hand-picked soldiers will tell “positive” stories from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army says the audience will not be pre-screened.
We’ll see. If these “meet the troops” get-togethers are genuinely open dialogues, then the Army should be doing hundreds – not just 15.
And another thing. Stop referring the Army as a “brand.” It isn’t. Brands don’t require an oath of allegiance, nor do they send you to places like Iraq where competing brands try to kill you. To hear some advertising suit from Leo Burnett call recruiting “a complicated sale” is an insult that trivializes the gut-wrenching decisions sons and daughters make to join the service. Especially now.
Putting soldiers out there to talk about their experiences – if this really happens – seems critical for recruiting in a country where most people don’t personally know anyone in uniform. But this outreach campaign also needs the consistent voice of a recognized leader – and that person has to be in uniform, too.
Wars need popular generals that tell it straight -- the good and bad news. We don’t have that. The president was barely in the National Guard, while the Vice President and even the Secretary of the Army never served in the military. The Secretary of Defense served stateside for two years in the 1950s. They’re not exactly the most tell-it-like-it-is bunch, either.
These guys would have little credibility with potential recruits and their post-Vietnam parents even if there was consensus about Iraq. Given that support for the war is dropping as body counts rise, having this administration be the voice of duty, honor and sacrifice is probably the biggest sale-killer of them all.
Disclosure: I spent eight years on active duty, ending with working at the Pentagon as an editor and writer for the official Army News Service (ARNEWS) during the transitional draft-to-volunteer military years.
