Washington –
After being forced to remove a commercial featuring actor Jonathan Majors, who was arrested last Saturday, the Army has quickly rolled out several new recruitment ads to air during this weekend’s NCAA Final Four basketball games. I am working on putting it together.
Army leaders are thrilled to feature the major in ads as a key part of a new campaign aimed at reviving the service’s struggling recruitment numbers, which fell well short of last year’s enlistment targets. They believed they could use the popularity Majors had gained with his recent films Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumanias in advertising.
But last weekend, they took the ad off the air when Majors was arrested in New York on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment. However, Majors’ attorney, Priya Chowdhury, said there was evidence to liquidate Majors and that the actor was “probably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knew.”
Army marketing chief Maj. Gen. Alex Fink told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the Army cut a planned $70 million loss in ad purchases last week by postponing ads or replacing them with other advance ads. He said he was able to avoid it. Existing commercials updated quickly.
Advertisements were set to appear on TV, online such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and on digital and physical billboards, including buses. This ad purchase was a major part of the campaign, costing him $117 million in total.
“We have been able to fully utilize most of the funds we have invested so far,” Fink said in an interview. “
He said the Army had amassed a “tremendous amount” of content and footage for two commercials titled “Overcoming Obstacles” and “Pushing Tomorrow” that featured the major as a narrator.
“Most of that content didn’t include the main narrator…so there’s a lot of undo content to basically make new commercials and new ads if needed “The campaign is going full steam ahead,” says Fink.
The Army held a major event at the National Press Club earlier this month as part of a plan to revive the popular Army slogan “Be All You Can Be,” which dominated recruitment ads for 20 years starting in 1981, to announce the new Launched an advertising campaign. Two new ads highlight some of the Army’s history and the many careers recruits can pursue. They ran him from 12 March until he was lifted from the air by the Army on the 25th.
Last year was the Army’s worst recruiting year in recent history, falling 25% short of its goal of recruiting 60,000 recruits.
Lawmakers on the Capitol raised an advertising issue on Tuesday, asking Secretary of War Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville about how the military plans to solve the draft issue. .
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-California), chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said: “Hopefully cut the new commercial and put it online as soon as possible.”
Wormuth said the Army has many new programs, including bonuses, referral initiatives, and future soldier preparation courses that give underperforming recruits the opportunity to take academic or fitness courses to meet enlistment standards.
“If we are to continue to be the greatest military force in the world, this is a fundamental problem that the Army must solve, so we are trying to do everything we can think of.
