'Army Strong' replaces 'Army of One'

SSGMike.Ivy · 10-09-2006, 03:34 PM

Ad slogan changes to stress notion of self-improvement

WASHINGTON - In its battle to win the hearts and minds of recruiting-age Americans, the Army is replacing its main ad slogan — “An Army of One” — with one it hopes will pack more punch: “Army Strong.”
The new approach, the fruit of a $200 million-a-year contract with a major advertising agency, was announced Monday by Army Secretary Francis Harvey. He said “Army Strong” will be the centerpiece of a multimedia ad campaign to be launched Nov. 9, timed to coincide with Veterans Day weekend.
Army officials acknowledge that recruiting during wartime is difficult, particularly with the Iraq war grinding on far longer than Bush administration officials expected and U.S. troops dying in battle almost every day.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15197720/

**Brad** · 10-09-2006, 03:56 PM

Why not just "ARMY"? It works for the Marines...

**Infantrymen** · 10-09-2006, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SSGMike.Ivy

Ad slogan changes to stress notion of self-improvement

WASHINGTON - In its battle to win the hearts and minds of recruiting-age Americans, the Army is replacing its main ad slogan — “An Army of One” — with one it hopes will pack more punch: “Army Strong.”
The new approach, the fruit of a $200 million-a-year contract with a major advertising agency, was announced Monday by Army Secretary Francis Harvey. He said “Army Strong” will be the centerpiece of a multimedia ad campaign to be launched Nov. 9, timed to coincide with Veterans Day weekend.
Army officials acknowledge that recruiting during wartime is difficult, particularly with the Iraq war grinding on far longer than Bush administration officials expected and U.S. troops dying in battle almost every day.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15197720/

God damn, that's fucking gay. I can't believe they actually paid for someone to come up with that.

Let's sum this up:

First the fucked up the Ranger's black beret....
Next they fucked up the uniform...
Then to top it all off they had a perfectly good slogan "Be all you can be" and traded down for a perplexing "An Army of one". what "Am Army of one" wasn't living up to the new fucked up changes so they needed "Army Strong"...

They registered the domain names in Aug 2006 (I looked it up)...

Armystrong.com (not online yet)
Armystrong.net (not online yet)
Armystrong.org (not online yet)
Armystrong.info (not online yet)
Armystrong.us (not online yet)

**Covertness** · 10-09-2006, 07:30 PM

Agreed. They should have gone back to "Be all that you can be". That was classic. Like, "The Few, The Proud, The Marines".

Army strong? Maybe if they show a bunch of sniviling meat headed civilian weight lifters get their ass kicked by some 160 lb Grunt. It'll be interesting how they play it out.

**Infantrymen** · 10-09-2006, 07:35 PM

I was thinking the same thing!

"Me Strong guy, Army Strong... we're here to PUMP you up!" (said with a german accent)

Quote:

Ad slogan changes to stress notion of self-improvement

Wasn't that what "Be all you can be" did?

AmericanGirl · 10-09-2006, 09:06 PM

hell, we had better ideas in our slogan idea thread...

**ClutterbusterNY** · 10-09-2006, 09:28 PM

Those Madison Avenue types don't know squat about what makes Americans choose to serve our country...or as Covertness would say,
"what makes men fight".

Being in advertising myself, I can see where "Army Strong" came from. The same types of minds that brought you "Ford Tough"...and "Job One".
That's fine for selling cars, but you can't convince people to put their lives on the line with slogans. It is something that is already within them.
As for choosing a branch, information is all people need, not advertisements. I would be fired for saying this, but I'd think the Army could put that $1billon to better use investing it in enhancing the lives of our Soldiers and their families and taking care of our Veterans.
.................................................. ...............................................

“Army Strong” was developed by McCann Worldgroup, the communications firm the Army hired last December after struggling through a disappointing recruiting year. The overall five-year contract with McCann Worldgroup is valued at $1 billion, with the first two years guaranteed at $200 million annually.
The new slogan, developed in numerous tests with focus groups and interviews with soldiers, is meant to convey the idea that if you join the Army you will gain physical and emotional strength, as well as strength of character and purpose.
“What will happen if you come into the Army is what soldiers know happens: you become better,” Van Antwerp said in an interview. It also is aimed at selling the merits of Army service to parents, teachers and other “influencers” — adults who directly influence a young person’s direction in life, Van Antwerp said.
Harvey said the ad campaign “speaks to the essential truth” of being a soldier.
.................................................. .................................................. .....................
Advertisers always target "influencers". They have no idea what an uphill
battle this is. There is nothing you can say to get parents and teachers to
push Military Service on kids, not in this day and age...and as we know first hand from some of our members, there's nothing you can do to stop kids who want to join!

USMC Chuter · 10-11-2006, 12:53 AM

Gay. Not as gay as "Army of One", but still gay.

Grimmy · 10-11-2006, 11:21 AM

I know I am an "outsider" from an Army perspective but what I see in all this is a need to fire a shit-load of Army brass and radically redesign US Army "career officer" job slots that are outside of actual US Army unit staffing.

There are way way way too many officers in "job slots" that have next to nothing to do with anything functional. Too many people have to generate problems to for their staffs to fix in order to remain relevant and get that promo to General.
If the US Army is so concerned that their Soldiers don't feel motivated or proud enough, then make them get motivated and proud. This is done at the company command level by becoming hard, tough and demanding of excellence.... not by designing a new style of hat or uniform or sloganeering.

I'm not saying the US Army actually has a problem. For as much as I know, this might be something completely made up by a bunch of jerkoffs with nothing else to do by make shit up to fix. Or it might be a real problem. That's the problem with such problems. When the record keepers and data sorters tend to be those that make shit up to feed their own need, know one can ever really know what the fuck is going on.

But if there is a real problem then it's actually about too many unnecessary and irrelevant Lt Col, Col and Gen ranks and not enough tough love at the Capt level.

From my view, as an outsider, the US Army is currently following the US Air Force into becoming more of a national social engineering organization, rather than a maintained fighting force.

**Vulture6** · 10-11-2006, 12:30 PM

I love advertising and marketing idiots! I work with a bunch of them too -- you know, people who don't know their market, don't know their customers, don't know their product, and don't "get it" but who went to some fancy-ass school to get a degree in marketing....

Could it be that they have the following opinion?

"Army Strong. Me Smart. Me want join Army. Make Army Strong. Me Soldier Now!" What a bunch of dipshits.

--------------------------------------------

Okay, like Grimmy said, I'm an outsider. Let me think about this for, oh, say 30 seconds.................

How's this: "Soldier on... it's more than a slogan. It takes a lot of what's within you to be a Soldier. Do you have what it takes to Soldier on?"

Okay, let's run that through a murder board, put together some radio, TV and print concepts... dress it up a little, and BING -- give me a slice of the stinking $200 million contract!