1.

Nation

Wires

PENTAGON DELAYS RELEASE OF MAY RECRUITING DATA

Reuters
June 1, 2005

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060101251.html
or
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01399250.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Wednesday postponed by more than a week the release of military recruiting figures for May, as the Army and Marine Corps struggle to attract new troops amid the Iraq war.

The military services had routinely provided most recruiting statistics for a given month on the first business day of the next month.

Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the May numbers for the active-duty and reserve components of the all-volunteer military will be released on June 10.

"Military recruiting is instrumental to our readiness and merits the earliest release of data. But at the same time, this information must be reasonably scrutinized and explained to the public, which deserves the fullest insight into military performance in this important area," Krenke said.

Asked whether the move would simply delay the release of bad news, Krenke said, "That's not necessarily true," noting that "we expect the numbers to improve during the summer months."

Military recruiters have said potential recruits and their parents were expressing wariness about enlisting during the Iraq war. They said improving civilian job opportunities also were affecting recruiting.

The regular Army missed its recruiting goals for three straight months entering May, falling short by a whopping 42 percent in April. The Army was 16 percent behind its year-to-date target entering May, with a goal of signing up 80,000 recruits in fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30.

The Marine Corps missed its goal for signing up new recruits for four straight months entering May and was 2 percent behind its year-to-date goal. It hopes to sign up 38,195 recruits in fiscal 2005.

2.

DoD ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY FOR RELEASING RECRUITING STATS
By Laura Bailey

** Individual services no longer authorized to announce numbers at beginning of the month **

Army Times
June 3, 2005

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-892069.php

The Army and Marine Corps, as they struggle with recruiting shortfalls, will no longer announce their monthly recruiting numbers at the beginning of each month.

Instead, the Defense Department will approve the release of recruiting statistics for all four services.

Normally, each service releases its monthly statistics at the beginning of each month, but a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command said on Wednesday that he was no longer authorized to do so.

In April, the Corps missed its contracting goal by 260 contracts -- falling 9 percent shy of its goal to enlist 2,971 recruits -- marking the fourth month in a row that the Corps missed its contracting goal.

But whether the Corps was able to turn that around in May will not be known until the Defense Department releases the statistics June 10, said Maj. David Griesmer.

The change will ensure consistency and give Pentagon officials time to review the data, Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said on Wednesday.

“We just wanted to release all the information at the same time. It’s all the numbers at once, instead of one service coming out on this day of the month and another service coming out on another day of the month,” Krenke said.

Under the old system, the individual service statistics were released before Pentagon leadership could review them, she said.

She said the Defense Department will begin releasing recruiting statistics for all of the services and the Guard and reserve, which handled them separately before.

But another Pentagon spokesman contacted Marine Corps Times on Friday and said that the Defense Department was not taking over the releasing of the information. Jim Turner said the services will continue to release their own statistics but were merely coordinating the release date for the 10th of each month.

Of all the services, the Army is struggling the most to meet its recruiting goals. In April, it made just 58 percent of its active accession mission. Its goal for that month was to ship 6,600 recruits, but only 3,821 recruits shipped up for service.

For the Corps, the shortfalls began in January, when it missed its contracting goal for the first time in almost a decade. While the amount of new contracts has fallen short, the Corps’ shipping goal -- the number of recruits who actually show up at boot camp each month -- has not yet suffered.

Corps officials have said that as long as the contracting shortages do not continue, the Corps could still make its goals for the year.

3.

News

AGGRESSIVE AD EFFORTS TACKLE ARMY RECRUITING WOES FROM MANY ANGLES
By Richard Whittle

Knight Ridder (Dallas Morning News)
June 1, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Father and son lean on the rail of the side porch after dinner, peering out into an evening drizzle. The young man wears an Army uniform.

"You're a changed man," the father tells his son solemnly, pride in his eyes.

"How's that?" the freshly minted soldier replies.

"When you got off that train back there, you did two things you've never done before. At least not at the same time. You shook my hand. And then you looked me square in the eye. Where's that come from?"

The son begins to grin slightly as the picture fades to a slogan: U.S. Army. Help Them Find Their Strength.

Unable to drum up the recruits it has needed each month since January, the Army has begun broadcasting new TV ads aimed at "influencers" -- parents, coaches, teachers and other adults who can be an obstacle to recruiting.

"It's a bit too early to tell" whether the ads will boost recruiting numbers, Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, commander of Army recruiting, told reporters at the Pentagon.

But poignant TV ads aimed at parents are just one of a host of creative recruiting tactics the Army and Army National Guard are using as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a better economy make military service a harder sell.

For all the advertising effort, recruiting is sagging badly. As of April 30, the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard were 18,135 recruits short of the combined 89,599 new members they were aiming for by that point in fiscal year 2005, which began Oct. 1.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Army has boosted its advertising budget from $140 million to $180 million a year. It has enhanced its www.goarmy.com Web site, created a new Web page aimed at parents and vastly expanded its sports sponsorships.

The service's Golden Knights precision parachute team has performed for years at air shows, races, football games and other sporting events.

But since Sept. 11, 2001, "They have been jumping down onto the beaches down in Florida during spring break and speaking to young people, not only high school but college students, about the U.S. Army," said Army spokesman Paul Boyce.

Even before Sept. 11, the Army sponsored National Hot Rod Racing Association driver Tony Schumacher. Since then, the service has begun sponsoring NASCAR driver Joe Nemechek, two riders in the Pro Stock Motorcycle Racing circuit, the U.S. Army All-American Bowl high school football game in San Antonio, three professional bull riders and an eight-member professional rodeo team.

The Army sponsors events such as racing and rodeo because marketing surveys show that their fans -- both potential recruits and influencers -- are "positive toward military service," noted Anthony Ciliberto, deputy director of strategic outreach for the U.S. Army Accessions Command.

The service also sends recruiters to auto shows, concerts and other public events in an "urbanized" H2 Hummer painted in flashy yellow and black with chrome wheels and grille. At outdoor events, this "Taking it to the Streets" program includes two tractor trailer-sized displays that include a helicopter flight simulator and a rock-climbing wall.

The National Guard, which handles its own recruiting and has a much smaller $42 million advertising budget, has been beefing up its advertising, too.

"We really began to notice the trends last April, that after seven straight years of achieving our end-strength, we were going to come to some challenging months," said Lt. Col. Michael Jones, deputy chief of the National Guard's recruitment and retention division. "The decision was made that we've got to do things differently to be successful."

The Guard has "completely revamped our Web site," www.1-800-go-guard.com, he said. It's also changed its theater advertising from still to moving slides. And in certain theaters in 22 states, including Texas, tickets sold to patrons 17 to 39 include coupons inviting them to the Guard's Web site.

The Army Guard also puts reply-postcard inserts into Blockbuster DVDs and sends direct mail solicitations to Blockbuster customers who rent video games.

"There's one person who can help keep America strong . . . You," the message on the cards reads. "In the Army National Guard, you can!"

Earlier this year, the Guard even considered spending several million dollars to buy the naming rights to RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., where the Washington Nationals baseball team plays. After key members of Congress objected, Guard commander Lt. Gen. Steven Blum vetoed that idea.

The Army also sends fliers to its target age group by direct mail, advertising enlistment bonuses of up to $20,000, college money of up to $65,000 and "30 days of paid vacation earned each year." Those who respond on the Web, by phone or by postage-paid postcard get a free Army T-shirt.

Because National Guard units are state organizations whose troops answer to the governor unless ordered to federal duty, authority to come up with new recruiting gimmicks has been given to local units, so practices vary from state to state.

The West Virginia National Guard, for example, is "heavy on military police units," said spokesman Maj. Todd Harrell, so one MP company recently held a "Career Day for Law Enforcement." Local police and sheriff's departments and the state police sent representatives to tell potential recruits how service as a military police officer in the National Guard could pave the way to a law enforcement career.

Advertising and marketing professionals said there isn't necessarily anything wrong with the Army's ad campaigns, which Army spokesman Boyce said focus on two themes: career opportunities and patriotism.

The simple fact, they agreed, is that promoting the idea of military service when U.S. troops are being killed in Iraq nearly every day and the economy is offering other job opportunities is a hard sell.

Michael Hylden, 18, of Plano, Texas, a 2004 graduate of Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas, said he considered joining the military after high school but was uninspired by the Army's advertisements -- especially its "Army of One" slogan.

"The Army never really got me interested because the 'Army of One' thing just doesn't get to me," Hylden said. "The Marines always got to me because they were all about honor and that sort of thing. That just really hits something inside of me every time I see it. I think, 'Man, I really want to go join the Marines and give something back to this country.'"

But instead, he ended up enrolling at the University of Arkansas, where he recently finished his freshman year. "There's this voice in my head that says, 'You should volunteer and give back to this country,'" Hylden said. "But there's this other voice in my head that says, 'What if you die?' And it always wins out."

Doubts about the legitimacy of the war in Iraq after no weapons of mass destruction were found there makes the task even harder, said advertising executive Lenny Stern of the New York ad agency SS+K.

"The military perhaps has a challenge in trying to convince people that this is a mission worth going into the service for," said Stern, whose clients include Microsoft and Time Warner Cable.

Hylden's friend Josh Hauberg, 19, a student at Collin County Community College, is a case in point. The "Army of One" advertisements "don't do anything for me," he said, but the war in Iraq is the main reason he has no interest in military service.

Army recruiters show up at his school regularly and have called him at home. And his firefighter father "actually told me I probably should join," Hauberg said.

"I basically told them I don't really feel that I need to go fight a war that I don't believe in," the young man said.

Patricia Alvey, director of the Temerlin Advertising Institute at Southern Methodist University, said selling people soda pop is a lot different from persuading them to risk their lives in the military.

"You have to have a reason to want to give that much away," she said. "When it is not a time of war, the Army can be an adventure, it can be a way to get an education, it can be a way to see the world. At a time of war, you can't have the same conversation."

Stephen Greyser, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, agreed that "one has to have a special kind of advertising to attract people to the prospect that they might actually die in combat."

Judging the effectiveness of the Army's current advertising campaigns, created by the Leo Burnett USA agency of Chicago, is impossible without detailed research, Greyser said, and "it's not easy to judge even if one had all the numbers."

But if not for advertising, he mused, "Maybe they'd be further behind their goals."