Faced with the most challenging recruiting environment in the history of the all-volunteer force, and under pressure to account for the return on taxpayer dollars, DDB assembled a powerful new model for full-funnel performance. This engine is an end-to-end solution where brand is the amplifier of every interaction in the ecosystem.
But fundamental to the model’s success is the unifying idea – “Be All You Can Be” – turning a mission and promise to this next generation of recruits into a dynamic source of demand.
our Army experience is proof that idea systems built on emotional performance provide valuable connective tissue to win in today’s fragmented media marketing landscape.
The U.S. Army was at an inflection point. Economic headwinds, a highly competitive labor market, and shifting generational values were colliding to create one of the most challenging recruitment environments in history. In the face of these changes, the Army’s marketing efforts were simply not up to the task, reliant on mass marketing via linear channels, and lacking attribution and understanding of marketing effectiveness. And the messaging was outdated, not fit for purpose.
In 2019, DDB took over the account and overhauled the entire marketing operation for the U.S. Army, standing up “Team DDB,” an interdependent marketing team of nine key specialist agencies brought together as one unit. The mission: make the Army the most inspiring and irresistible choice of a vital new generation of potential recruits.
The team connected research, strategy, creative, multicultural, media, PR, social, digital, analytics, digital, web, direct, CRM, event, and local marketing, all working with common data, technology, and workflow optimization and delivery toolkits (our Omni platform). The team operates on a single view of recruits (SVOR) through the entire funnel toward enlistment contracts, and collectively delivers on the metrics needed to ensure everything from platform to targeting to messaging to experience are working as one to make mission.
While prospects’ career journeys are non-linear, the funnel framework informs the design of marketing approaches that meet prospects wherever they’re at, reducing friction in their decision-making process. The funnel also acts as a bridge between Marketing and Recruiting to ensure a seamless prospect experience and smooth operational flow. In order to provide the evidence based recommendations and work the Army required Team DDB created an integrated framework, overlaying marketing planning, activation and tracking onto the marketing funnel in order to ensure we collect all the required metrics.
The real power to move prospects to recruits has come from a unifying platform idea, Be All You Can Be, that shapes every encounter with the Army toward its goals as the largest service in the U.S. military.
The heart of the recruiting challenge is a perceptual one: when today’s prospects think of the U.S. Army, they think of a “distant star,” not a path for their own possibilities. They see the Army as under-delivering on what matters most to them – Purpose, Passion, Community, Connection –and over-delivering on attributes they cannot relate to.
But the U.S. Army has an emotional advantage. At a time when careers with meaning are in short supply, the Army offers a genuine and unique pathway for a new generation to truly be all you can be. This isn’t just a tagline; it’s a promise threaded through every experience across the prospect journey to contract – addressing every misconception, barrier, and challenge via content, partnerships, events, and interactions designed to reveal the whole, empowering truth of the Army.
