Recruit ads urge parents to let kids go--into Army

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Recruit ads urge parents to let kids go--into Army
TV campaign hopes to win over skeptical moms and dads in time of war

By Jason George
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 13, 2005

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0508130068aug13,1,6049954.story

A new series of television ads aims to get parents to "Help them find their strength" and not stand in the way of their children signing up. One commercial begins with a teenager telling his mother he has found a way to pay for his college education. When he reveals that the answer is the military, she becomes skeptical. "Go on," she says cautiously. "I already checked them out," he says, trying to dissolve her disapproving glare. "And I can get training in about any field I want. "And besides, it's time for me to be the man." Satisfied, she smiles. "OK, tell me more."

The ads, collectively known at the Army as the Influencer group, were created by Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett USA, and began running in April. Since then, the Army has tripled their visibility. The ads will run nationwide approximately 4,000 times from July until September. "We vastly increased our media buy to support this campaign and to encourage an informed dialogue between parents and prospects," said Louise Eaton, chief of the media and Web branch within the Army's Accession Command.

Focus groups and Army recruiters told Leo Burnett USA's ad team that parents and other influencers still play an important role in the decision to enlist, said Ray DeThorne, the executive vice president at Leo Burnett USA in charge of the Army's account. "I think that when we're at war, it magnifies what the ultimate cost of war could be," he said. "It's a big decision--the minimum you can enlist is 15 months. We at least want the parent to be willing to listen to that conversation."

Scheduled to begin in September, the contract could be worth more than $1 billion and is considered to be the biggest government advertising contract ever. Three of the Army's new Influencer ads are in English and one is in Spanish. In addition to the "Dinner Conversations" spot with an African-American mother and son, the two other English-language ads feature white fathers and sons; one is for the Army and the other for the Army Reserve. In one, a misty-eyed father tells his son that when he picked him up earlier that day at the train station, the son shook his hand and looked him in the eye. "Where did that come from?" the father asks. The son, in an Army dress uniform, simply smiles back.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Maybe they could offer a $10k bounty to the parents for draging the kid in

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. good idea

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Now THAT would appeal to the repub base.

Bonuses for the kids isn't working, so try bonuses for the parents. They've already sold their souls to the party, might as well sell their kids to the army.

[NJCher]

3. this absolutely makes me sick

Now the government is spending a billion of our taxpayer dollars to get people to fight wars the taxpayer doesn't want and doesn't approve of. This is sick sick sick and it's totally out of hand.

People are supposed to WANT to serve their government. The government should not be spending a billion dollars to persuade people without a lot of opportunity to join up.

Nobody wants to serve in this army because the wars it is fighting are not for our country. It is for a band of corporations and the leeches who suck off them like bush and cheney. Let the damned corporations pay for their own wars!

I have seen these ads and they are emotionally manipulative.

The only good thing I have to say about this situation is that I teach in some urban areas and my students wouldn't fall for this crap. They are too savvy and they don't trust this government or anything it says.


Cher

[cobaindrain]

4. I think the military should be barred from advertising on TV

hey, cigarettes are banned from TV, and they don't kill you nearly as fast as the military.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. In one, a misty-eyed father tells his son that when he picked him up

earlier that day at the train station, the son shook his hand and looked him in the eye. "Where did that come from?" the father asks. The son, in an Army dress uniform, simply smiles back.

Ya know, I don't think I ever shook my father's hand. That's how you greet strangers. Maybe for republicans, that's the norm.

I don't know how effective these ads are - I've seen them all, other than the spanish language ones, and all they do for me is piss me off. Then again, I've never been very susceptible to advertising. Maybe because I grew up without television.

[cobaindrain]

8. they're targeting minorities again

the only ad I've seen is the one with the black kid and his mom, and that runs like 50 times a day where I live. Wouldn't shock me if the spanish ad is running all the time on the spanish stations.

They're telling some of these poorer kids that the military is the only way out of a bad situation.

[Mist]

9. Yeah, that's the one that's running here in heavy rotation. n/t

[OneTwentyoNine]

11. And the kid tells his mom its HIS turn to be a man.....

Jesus,what propaganda bullshit. And... dangle that college carrot out in front. Dead people don't go to college.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

10. I saw that one...he learned how to shake a hand in the Army. Touching.

I challenge anyone, especially the chickenhawks, to fina a "Hallmark Moment" in the war in Iraq.

Maybe if we'd gone after Osama...really, really went after him...dug deep into the roots of the 19 mothef**kers who flew those planes...MAYBE there'd be a reason to get behind whatever "war" we might be in right now and wave the flag.

But we didn't. Bush had the support of much of the world in the days right after 9/11, and he pissed it all away.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

6. Good God.......

.....where's the one where the father arrives at the train station as they roll out the flag draped coffin or mom at the kitchen window when the two officers make that long walk up to the front door?

Yeah, I shouldn't be cynical about something that I consider honorable in serving your country, but with the assclown-in-charge running things, and his utter disdain for men and women serving, those ads take on a different feel. They are just creepy. Like telling your 15 year old daughter, "Sure, the 25 year old guy you work with can take you to that Kid Rock concert."

[Hippo_Tron]

12. The ads themselves aren't really what bother me

Ads like this are nothing new and they aren't going away anytime soon. They focus on the benefits of joining the armed forces and those benefits are very real (well they were more so before the Bush administration). The problem is, that the recruiter should be responsible for telling the other side of the story when somebody walks in and wants to sign up. They should tell them that there are great benefits but that it is also probably the greatest commitment and sacrifice that they will ever make. Of course recruiters don't do that. Instead, they forge high school diplomas and help kids pass drug tests so that they can get into the army.

Oh yea, and giving high school students' private information to recruiters is a ridiculous violation of privacy rights.

[cobaindrain]

13. oh its worse than that

try kidnapping the mentally handicapped

[Hippo_Tron]

16. Haven't heard of that one, do you have a link?

[cobaindrain]

17. looking...

somebody posted it here a while ago. It was about a mother of a slow, though somewhat able student who was harassed by some recruiters. He goes missing for days, then out of the blue his mother gets a call from her son saying that he can only talk for a minute because he needs to report for training.

[sendero]

14. When the late great Bill Hicks..

... asked his audience if any of them were in advertising, and then advises them "just kill yourself, really" - this is what he was on about.

[deadparrot]

15. I flip the station when those propaganda-ridden pieces of filth air. nt