What this means is that while economic circumstances are beginning to increase the overall number of potential recruits, these recruits don't end up in the Army. The communication challenge was simple: to get candidates considering a career in the military forces to consider the Army.
The Army's primary audience of 18-24 has an attraction to action in all forms, including gaming. Based on that psychographic alone, there was a unique opportunity for the Army to gain engage its target audience through gaming consoles. The Army combined this insight with the tried and tested popularity of reality based TV shows.
The Army's gruelling annual Best Ranger Competition, akin to a "decathlon in combat boots" offered an action packed backdrop for a video series. A game plan to debut the high adrenaline content simultaneously on both next generation gaming consoles as well as other premium entertainment platforms favoured by males aged 18-24, began to shape up.
Once the Best Ranger Competition webisode series was cut into 12 episodes chronicling the race, the Army took to the virtual streets of PlayStation HOME with a team of guerrilla marketing avatars dressed in camouflage "Army Strong" t-shirts. Their assignment was to drive gamers to the HOME Movie Theatre to pick up their own Army Strong T-shirt and watch the debut of the series in High Definition. Simultaneously, the series was available for free download in the PS3 Store and Xbox Live. This was the first ever Video Game Console Takeover for a branded content video series.
Hulu showcased the Army's entire 12-part series, and ESPN published content. For the launch, a "multimedia roadblock" across all ESPN platforms including a custom execution for video play on the iPhone. Elements from ESPN Web, TV, Radio and Print properties all drove traffic to the branded viewing hub on ESPN.com which housed the entire series.
Total views of the Best Ranger webisodes reached 5,844,282. Exposure to the webisodes resulted in a 32% lift in seek more info on Army intent, and a 44% lift in enlisting in the Army intent.
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