:Very good laugh:
I attribute that one to the Ad Agency with the USMC contract turning over that season’s campaign to some new guy, unaware he was a total geek or had a substance-use issue or both 
. Hey, you’d grow a little loose if your creative department had to think up a grand total of two slogans over 30+ years, and someone at some point etched in stone that all your ad campaigns must (a) feature the word “few” and (b) have a sword somewhere in the visuals.
(OTOH the original USMC “sword” ad – “you begin with raw steel…” – was just outstanding…)
I remember the 1973 ‘Join the People Who Joined the Army,’ I also remember the short-lived slogan that came before that ‘Great Moments can be Yours (in the New Action Army)’ it went nowhere. The ad on TV had an Army marching band.
Odd how that one never turns up on lists.
Forget the slogan, design a class A uniform that is slightly less embarrassing.
(for those unaware in the audience: Army Class A currently is the Green suit-and-tie outfit)
Well Paul, you do know of the latest brilliant ideaabout the class A’s, right?
Yep, that will help, if they can keep from monkeying with its simplicity.
Nice to know that Tarzan and Tonto are running an ad agency now.
Army strong.
President dumb.
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Nothing about that seems to use Caveman Grammar (or whatever you want to call it). The phrase is not meant to be a complete sentence - it’s not supposed to mean “[The] Army [is] strong”. It’s supposed to mean, you know, “Be strong. Be Army strong.” They use it in that specific way early in the ad, with “Army” being a modifier of “strong”. This is completely normal for casual English usage. Stuff like She’s hot, but she’s not model hot. Whether it makes for an effective campaign or not I couldn’t say, but it doesn’t seem at all peculiar to me from a grammatical perspective.
Excalibre humourless.
I was just sayin’ . . .
sigh This IS the Army we’re talking about, y’know… (*)
BTW, the Ad itself is quite good, well produced and executed. If the whole campaign keeps that focus, they may have a good one in their hands…
… then again, refer to the exchange at the top of this post :smack: God, please, no dragons…
(*full disclosure: I am one of the apparently bizarre freaks who LIKED the green suit. )
When truth in advertising laws become applicable, maybe we’ll see a commercial like this:
A long row of body bags being loaded into a cargo plane in the desert, while the soundtrack of Taps is heard. Then a fade-in of tasteful letting reads:
"Imagine how proud your parents will be when you get shipped home.
The Army.
We have your future all sewed up."
Nah. Not gonna happen.
They’ll keep running the “We can give you a college education, and a big swinging dick” theme, and it will continue to appeal to enough youngsters looking to become grown ups.
Let’s hear it for Madison Avenue.
Hey, I know a guy in the Army. College education, check. Big swinging dick, check.
Even though he is retiring, I’m pretty sure they’re going to let him keep both.
Well, I liked it. But then, I’m a slut for recruiting advertisments.
I didn’t like the “Army of one” slogan, but I found a lot of the individual ads to be very moving.
And I also liked the Marines against the dragons ad, too.
As I said, I like that kind of shit.
And the Marines fighting the dragon bit always did very good for the Marine Corps, as does anything featuring the dress blues and the sword. Even though I am slightly biased, I always felt the Marine Corps had the best commercials that:
-
Never advertised the tangible benefits, i.e. college education, travel, money, bonuses, etc.
-
Never hid the fact it is hard and challenging.
But to be fair to the U.S. Army, they do have a harder job of recruiting. There is very little appeal to the guy who is college bound, educated, etc. to join other than the tangible benefits. If someone is looking for a challenge or eliteness, they can go to the Marine Corps recruiting office. If they are looking for travel, they can go to the Navy office. If they are looking for the easier life, they can go to the Air Force office. I felt bad for the Army recruiters, who had no choice but to offer education, bonuses, etc. to kids looking to join.
This campaign is much better than the Army of One campaign which pissed off a lot of the proud Army soldiers (like the whole beret thing). Army Strong seems like it might work if they continue to stress that intangibles (strongest army in the world).
I’ve gotta say, though, as much as I liked the ad, one part did cause my inner smartass to spark up. When it said, “Nothing on earth is stronger than a U.S. Army soldier,” my inner smartass (even as it swelled with pride) responded, “Well, except for a U.S. Marine.”
But, then, I’m a former squid, myself, and my son is a Navy Hospital Corpsman who works with Marines… So I kind of embrace that friendly rivalry between the Army and the other forces.
Still, it was a great ad.
Or pictures of those you have the opportunity to maim and kill.
What people need to keep in mind is that marketing isn’t always about just selling a product or service to people. Well, ultimately it is, but not always in a direct way.
Burger King has those weird commercials with the freaky King to advertise thier breakfast menu. The ad’s are very odd and don’t seem like a good way to sell breakfast sandwich’s. This isn’t an accident. They found that advertising for fast food breakfasts just led more people to think about getting an Egg McMuffin at McDonalds. Nobody thinks about Burger King when they think about fast food breakfasts. So, they needed something jarring to get everybody’s attention. Hence, the creepy King. They didn’t want to do a good job of selling breakfast sandwiches. They just wanted to get people to think about them when thinking about breakfast sandwiches.
It’s the same with the Army. They found that what most people don’t like about the army was the lack of individualism. The conformity of the army was seen as a negative by potential recruits, so they came up with the army of one slogan to fight this image. Sure, it’s not the best slogan possible to sell the Army to people. However, it’s not designed to be. It’s specifically designed to combat a certain perception.
They probably figured it did it’s job (or didn’t work at all) and now are trying something else. I like the new slogan. It’s more designed for general appeal, I think. They should use Model Hot also, though.
Join the Army and we’ll pay for college and make you ‘Army Strong’. By the time we get done with you you’ll be daiting women that are ‘Model Hot’.
Well, they could go with the old standby: “Join the Army and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship.”
“(but don’t they already have citizenship?)”
“sssshhhhh!”
Also, the Army now apparently signs Ad Agency contracts for 5 years at a time. You do have to wonder, “Army of One” was designed in 2000 and launched in Jan. 2001(*) for a peacetime Army… and within a year we were at war. That must have changed the metrics of success/failure. Contrast Be All You Can Be, which ran something like 18 years.
(*Same time the Navy started “Accelerate your Life” which has always given me this mental image of very improper and unsafe use of the catapult…)
Which would be consistent with their traditional pitch… “There must have been a mistake; the Army we joined is the one with the golf courses and the skiing and the Hot Models and…” :smack:
Controvert… heh, heh… but actually, you do know that noncitizen legal resident aliens do serve… and that serving in wartime now waives (used to shorten) the waiting time for getting full citizenship. So we’re getting there.
Meanwhile, the Air Force is apparently changing from “Cross into the Blue” to “Do Something Amazing”. Hmmm…
…gotta open me an ad agency, man…