2007 Bronze Effie Winner United States Marine Corps Integrated Marketing Category: Government, Institutional & Recruitment Lead Agency: JWT Media Agency: Mindshare Contributing Agencies: Uniworld Group & RMG Connect Client: United State Marine Corps Strategic Challenge United We Stood The social and political economies of today are becoming increasingly flat. Technological advances are eroding the defined separations between countries and cultures to where no single nation or continent is neither unaware of nor unaffected by the activities of another. On September 11, 2001 a seemingly small and insignificant terrorist organization was able to penetrate the powerful soils of our nation and forever change life as we knew it. Since that fateful day, fear has lived in the hearts and souls of the American people. Whether we face times of war or times of peace, the Marine Corps has stood ready to protect and defend the American people and their collective future. A surge in patriotism in the first few years following the attacks greatly helped to support the Marines in their challenge of sustaining a quality force of readiness. The Marine Corps saw military propensity numbers skyrocket as many Americans expressed their willingness and desire to serve their homeland. Few Left Standing In the beginning of 2003, the war in Iraq was a fully backed initiative, winning the support of our nation, its people, and the support of various other nations. In the last couple of years however, as
the terrorist threats and attacks did not subside, support for both the war in Iraq and the governing administration began to steadily decline. In 2006, these figures reached record lows (2006 Harris Poll Data). A decreasing veteran population within our society only compounds these issues. With fewer veterans to convey the merits of military service to today s youth, the Marine Corps and other military institutions must work harder to not only generate awareness among prospects, but also interest. In modern times, re-affiliating the general public with the benefits and values inherent with such civil service is critical to sustaining the All-Volunteer Force model. A Less Traveled Path In addition to socio-political difficulties, society is also placing constraints on today s youth, which further complicate enlistment goals. While the target market for military recruiting remains the same in terms of gender and age affiliations, the generational characteristics that define our youth, have evolved greatly in recent years. Today s youth is characterized as being heavily socialized and technologically savvy. As the number of outlets for socialization increase (MySpace, Facebook, etc) so does the pressure among today s youth to succeed in society. While military service is certainly a distinguished path to take after high school, college attendance is still the default option for many young men and women. According to research, 94% of the high school population expects to matriculate on to college, an increase of 4.5% since 2001 (2006 State of our Nation s Youth). The growing trend of college bound students is largely due to the fact that today s youth, unlike the generation preceding them, desperately seeks the approval of their families, peers, and society at large. Parents and influencers (including teachers, counselors, coaches, etc) play a bigger role in prospects life decisions than ever before. Parents specifically, are exercising veto power when it comes to their son or daughter s decision to enlist. And as willingness to recommend among parents and influencers continues to decrease, particularly within the African-American and Hispanic communities (2006 Department of Defense, Joint Advertising Military Research & Studies), so does overall enlistment consideration among prospects. In schools, there is much emphasis placed on what students should do after high school graduation and a decision to postpone or eliminate college from one s life path is considered a social derailment of sorts. Aside from being concerned with social derailment, our target market now perceives the opportunity cost of joining the military too high, particularly among the ground forces, as compared to the unique benefits and opportunities such service could provide. They believe that college will offer many of the same skills that military service boasts, such as leadership, discipline, and doing something to be proud of, without the potential for risking one s life to obtain them. Furthermore, the gap continues to widen between the salaries demanded of college graduates as compared to high school graduates. College graduates are now demanding salaries more than 40% higher than high school graduates. This financial truth only serves to perpetuate the Marine Corps recruiting difficulties. Today, military recruitment has arrived at its most competitive and challenging landscape since the instatement of the All-Volunteer Force in 1974. Compounding political, social, and economical variables have worked only to the detriment of military enlistment goals. Clark L. Caywood, a professor at Northwestern University, once said in The New York Times, If we go into a draft, this will be one of the biggest marketing failures ever, because it would mean the government, the military, the ad agencies and society had failed to provide a compelling rationale to serve.
Keeping the Institution Intact The Marines seek to fill their ranks with only those who have the mental and physical fortitude to withstand recruit training and life as a Marine. This path is not for the weak of mind, body, or spirit and only a select Few have the will and determination to endure the hardships that follow. The Marine Corps brand upholds only the most noble of promises: We Will Make Marines. Win Battles. Create Quality Citizens. In keeping with those promises, our primary objectives can be defined as follows: Recruiting Goals- Recruit enough Marines to sustain Congress s expected level of readiness: a. Recruit and ship 39,028 qualified young men and women to enlist in the Marines b. Maintain quality of recruits (as defined by mental category: 95% tier 1, 63% I-III alpha) Advertising Goals - Specifically, the advertising must: a. Increase the overall enlistment consideration for the Marine Corps among prospects, as measured by an annual Attitude and Awareness Tracking Study (AATS) b. Maintain the Marines Elite/Tough brand position, as measured by AATS c. Secure a greater brand association among prospects in the Personal Growth category, as compared to 2005, as measured by AATS d. Sustain 2005 levels of aided and unaided Marine Corps advertising awareness e. Attain better qualified leads for recruiters and thus create a higher contact to contract ratio/conversion rate f. Achieve these goals while having the lowest cost/awareness point in the category The Big Idea Tapping into the Millennial Moods The goal behind the Marine Corps communications plan was to surpass the other service branches and lead the pack in establishing the highest brand relevance among the youth audience from both a generational and diversity perspective. Over the past 33 years, the Marine Corps has carefully and successfully cultivated the Elite Warrior brand and the Transformation strategy. While other services sold every tangible benefit that coincided with military service in general, none of which were specific to their particular service branch, the Marine Corps embraced its points of distinction. The very premise on which the Marine Corps brand stood was personal challenge, i.e. Transformation. This brand identity showed strong potential to thrive with their target market in the face of a war-time recruiting environment. The Millennial generation, which includes the target market of 17-24 year old men and women, are known to have a predisposition to service. Whether it be a rite of passage to societal acceptance or a means by which one is able to give back their community or country, research indicates that Millennials are more propensed to public service than the preceding generation. Today s youth could be persuaded that military service is an opportunity to do something bigger than themselves (William Strauss, Life Course Associates). The Marine Corps Elite Warrior brand position has successfully remained relevant in spite of the vast generational preference gaps that we have seen over the last seventy years. Research indicates that among the highest ranking reasons to serve are those within the fidelity and dignity category. Other service branches continue to focus on the self oriented, tangible sections of this typology, and are unfortunately missing the primary enlistment motivation factors among this youth generation.
In 2006, the Marines stood strong behind the established framework of the Transformation strategy. They also introduced a subtle nod to service, country and calling into their story as a complementary message in their brand communications, to make certain their brand clearly resonated with the target audience. For the first time, the Marines also made an overt effort to address the parent and influencer market within their communications plan, to ensure this audience was well educated about the opportunities and benefits available to prospects considering enlistment in the Marine Corps. These initiatives helped prospects to more effectively garner support from their loved ones throughout their critical decision process. Furthermore, the Marines enhanced their communications to better address cultural differences among diversity audiences within the target market, specifically the African-American and Hispanic sectors. They sought to segment the youth market by their cultural and ethnic backgrounds, rather than treating them as a collective youth market. Through the isolation of differing enlistment motivation criteria, the Marine Corps was able to successfully reach these groups with a more relevant and appropriate message. Bringing the Idea to Life Getting Attention for the Message The communications plan was designed with the goal of focusing on the Marine Corps message in topically relevant areas to the target where they are spending most of their time: at school, watching television, online, and at leisure events. To build awareness among the target market, while still upholding the integrity of the brand, the mix included television commercials. Also, to reach the target at school where they spend the majority of their time, the Marines infused in-school television (Channel One), school newspapers and print that
reached the prospect, as well as guidance counselors, coaches and libraries. To drive engagement and traffic among active seekers to the newly enhanced Marines.com website, the Marines posted web banners on youth targeted sites such as ESPN.com, MTV.com, and Gamestop.com, and purchased high priority and high production key words online. This year, the Marines pioneered a military presence within one of the most popular social networking sites, MySpace. They also created a parent-focused website designed to educate them about the Marines Corps, as well as address their enlistment concerns. To generate more and better-qualified leads, the Marines designed six mailings to reach high school students at distinct times throughout the year. These mailers worked as a series of connecting messages, which helped to guide the prospect through his or her decision process. Event marketing at places such as NASCAR, i-high, and various concert series helped the Marines to find prospects where they spent their leisure time. The above campaign efforts worked together to drive prospects to recruiters, who were wellequipped with new parent and prospect-focused collateral pieces, films, and incentive items designed to enhance and reinforce the sales process experience. These items were used as sales tools for introducing the prospects and their families to the Marine Corps and the transformation that awaited them if they could prove they were worthy. Eight components of the plan broke down as follows: 1. Quality broadcast: Sports (football and basketball) and general entertainment. 2. Public Service Announcement Program: Service driven messaging delivered through television, radio, outdoor, and online mediums. 3. In-Theaters: High Impact media in male teen destinations. 4. In-school: Channel One, school magazines and posters. 5. On-line: Increased search engine optimization to make it easier for prospects to find us, as well as placed on-line banners and rich media to drive prospects from high teen destinations to Marines.com. 6. Direct Mail: Six mailings designed to reach High School juniors and seniors at critical decision times throughout the year. 7. Event marketing and sponsorship to put Marine Recruiters in front of prospects and maintain a presence in a community. 8. Recruiter Support: Informational brochures and collateral pieces, popular promotional items, educational films and videos, and visually engaging posters created to help reinforce the recruiter s sales communications and support mission attainment goals. Results Mission Accomplished This year, the Marines faced the most challenging recruiting environment yet. And this year, the Marines overcame this adversity against tremendous odds, and came out exceeding even their own expectations. 1. Recruiting Goals a. The Marines shipped not only the mission required 39,028, but an additional 275 qualified young men and women to boot camp achieving 100.7% of their shipping mission b. The Marines exceeded the level of quality recruits as defined by mental categories (stated earlier) with a 97.2% delivery of tier 1 (95% was goal), and 68.7% delivery of alpha I-III (63% was goal)*.
2. Advertising Goals - a. The Marines succeed in establishing the greatest relevance to the target market, as evidenced through an increase in the overall Enlistment Consideration among prospects for the Marine Corps specifically. All other branches decreased in consideration, as measured by the annual Attitude and Awareness Tracking Study (AATS)**. b. The Marines increased their category dominance in the Tough/Elite category to 53%, up 6% from 2005. c. They also increased their presence in the Personal Growth category to 27%, which was an increase of 17% from 2005. The Marines are now tied with the Army in brand association within the category, which is a major feat considering the Army outspends the Marines by 5 to 1. d. The Marines increased their overall aided and unaided awareness in 2006 by 2% when all other service branches declined in overall awareness, as measured by AATS. e. In 2006, the Marines generated 293,734 total qualified leads, contracting a total of 13,784 of those contacts, compared to 311,913 total qualified leads with 12,607 contracts in 2006, a 9.3% increase in contracts from 2005. The lead to contract ratio also increased to 5%, from 4% in the 2005, which was proof that the Marines were able to secure better qualified leads and thereby more recruits.***. f. Advertising spend based on cost/awareness point of all services****. SOURCES: * All recruiting and quality measurements/results supplied by the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, G- 3 (Operations) department. These numbers were prepared for a presentation to the Department of Defense to show Marine Corps mission success. ** AATS is an annual research study conducted by IPSOS for the advertising agency, on behalf of the Marines. For the past 11 years, it has tracked aided and unaided advertising awareness, and various other measures, for all branches of the military as a competitive analysis of the year s advertising efforts. *** Leads tracked by COGNOS, a business intelligence tool maintained by Merkle Direct Marketing to assist the advertising agency with lead tracking from various sources (direct mail, Marines.com, 1-800- Marines, etc.) **** Individual branch advertising spend found in TNS Media Intelligence, divided total spend by achieved awareness per AATS to determine cost per awareness point. Budget: $20 million and over Campaign Reach: National Media Channels: TV, Radio, Newspaper, Consumer Magazine, Direct Mail, P-O-P, OOH, PR, Interactive/Online