In the face of a looming recruiting Chernobyl, the US Army is rolling out a new series of ads. This will be the second flight of ads in the rebooted "Be All You Can Be" campaign. The first ad flight, which was built around celebrity endorsers, came to a shambolic end when Jonathan Majors, the on-screen narrator, was arrested for domestic violence.
READ: New Army Advertising Campaign Won't Succeed Because It Aims at a Young America That Does Not Exist.
The new ad campaign is called "First Steps," and they are structured to hit a perceived thirst of Generation Z for "authenticity." “Those are wildly popular because I think they’re looking for authenticity,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said.
The first three ads are out. In “First Arrival,” Army recruits are shown as they leave home and arrive at basic training. “First Patch shows family members placing unit patches on soldiers graduating from initial entry training. The third spot, “First Target,” shows a new tank loader engaging a live fire target for the first time.
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The fourth ad in the series, "First Jump," has created some real buzz.
The new ad features about 20 paratroopers preparing to jump from a CH-47. I have to admit the title "First Jump" is sort of puzzling, unless they are referring to the first jump after reporting to a unit because Airborne School jumps, as far as I can tell, are still conducted from C-130 or C-17 aircraft...or, in my case, a museum-eligible Georgia Air Guard C-123.
What's notable is the group is all male and nearly all white. Some of them may very well be homosexual, but you can't tell from the video. In fairness, some claim there is a single black woman behind the "YOU," but I'm not convinced that's correct.
This is a marked retreat from Army ads of at least the past decade. As someone on X, the social media platform formerly known as Prince Twitter, said, "White guys in an Army ad. The shit just got real."
Though the masculine nature of this ad got the attention of everyone, what is noticeable is how much this ad reflects a logical progression from the previous three. In "First Arrival," you have a group of generic teens/early twenties. No piercings, no tattoos, no magenta hair. The kids are all coming from small towns or the suburbs. The only thing out of the ordinary is at 0:20; you can't tell if it is a daughter giving her Mom a tearful goodbye hug or if it is a parting of lesbian lovers (NTTAWWT).
In "First Patch," all the troops are male. None appear to be anything but straight males of various races and ethnicities.
The new loader in "First Target" is a black male and the only visible character in the spot. The tank commander is male. The gunner could be a female or a guy wearing an overly tight thong (again, NTTAWWT). But the only visible character is male.
I don't know if these ads will succeed...and I have doubts that they will...because 45 days into Fiscal Year 2024, the Army predicts it will miss its recruiting target by 10,000 contracts.
I don't know if the ads will work, and I have a lot of doubts that mere ads can turn the Army's problems around, but they are a sign that lights are beginning to come on somewhere. You can't build an army, particularly an expeditionary army with potential global commitments, out of women and sexual minorities. You can't retain men in uniform when they are constantly bombarded by messages that label them racists, political extremists, homophobes, misogynists, and sexual predators who are only promoted when no one more deserving is left. Like it or not, the US Army and Marines, particularly the combat arms in those services, have always been heavily populated by rural white males.
In my opinion, these ads are aimed as much at the veteran influencer community that has washed its hands of the woke Army and stopped encouraging their sons and other young men to join the Army. The Army hopes to convince this underappreciated keystone of Army Recruiting that things are not as bad as we've been told. For my part, I'm not all that sure I believe them.
