This document discusses the US Army's marketing strategies and use of social media for recruiting. It provides an overview of the Army's marketing organization, challenges in recruiting, and strategies for social media recruiting. Specific initiatives are described, such as the Army Strong Stories blog and YouTube channel, profiles of Army astronauts on social media, and management of the official Army social media presence. The document advocates for active audience participation on social media to build trust, and outlines metrics for evaluating the return on investment of social media strategies.

1. TOP SEC RET
US Army Marketing Secrets
Twitter: @DavidALee

2. The Secret…What’s my brand???

3. The Secret…What’s my brand???

4. Agenda
 General Overview of Army Marketing
 Challenges
 Organization
 Social Media – Recruiting
 Social Media – The “Big Army”
 Dave’s 2 cents on social media
 So what??
 Questions

5. Director of Marketing
Responsibilities included:
-managing a budget that for FY07-FY09 was as much as $450 million per year,
-developing a more integrated campaign in order to produce cost efficiencies,
-managing three divisions and an operations section (details follow),
-working with an advertising agency with offices in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland and Los
Angeles,
-overseas communications plan to make sure public relations are integrated into new advertising and
digital campaigns as well as outreach events,
-although not an assigned responsibility we identified that education has become a strategic issue in our
country and leveraged our cost efficiencies to shift money into building an alliance with
national education organizations.
Advertising Digital Outreach

6. Working Relationships
McCann World
Group
Secretary of the Army
New York, NY
Chief of Staff, Army
Office of the Chief of Asst Sec of the Army
Public Affairs
(Manpower & Reserve Marketing
Affairs)
Advisors
Army Reserve Accessions Command Army Brand
Marketing Section Marketing Section Group
Basic Training ROTC Cadet
Army Recruiting Recruiting
(Research) Local Marketing
Local Marketing

7. The Army brand must be thought of as an umbrella over the Army’s “products”
Regular Army Army Reserve ROTC
 The Army brand will have a single message, look, personality and tone
 Linked brand positioning (messages)
 Unified logo / visual identity
 Each product has its own identity, but fits with the overall Army brand
 Linked positioning statements for Regular Army, Army Reserve and ROTC
 The products contribute to the image of the Army brand, and they will benefit from the
positive associations consumers develop toward the umbrella brand

8. Strategy
 Short term -
 Launch and establish Army Brand
 Increase Leads and traffic to stations to meet recruiting mission
 Position Brand for Long Term success - one look and one voice
 Midterm -
 Build Army Brand and improve awareness and propensity
 Employ market segmentation research to target messages more
effectively
 Employ Public Relations to extend message to both the internal and
external audiences
 Develop ethnic specific messages to increase enlistments in under-
represented ethnic markets
 Long term -
 Reinforce Army Brand with compelling and relevant ads and messages
 Integrate learning from Ad Tracking and research to improve campaign
effectiveness
 Synchronize Army-wide outreach programs and assets to support
recruiting

9. The Army’s Positioning For Recruiting
Soldier’s Purpose
A Soldier serves in the US Army and is committed to protecting the U.S. Constitution and all
that it stands for.
Soldiers Definition
A Soldier is strong (Mentally, physically and emotionally), adaptive, confident, and values
driven.
Value Statement
Becoming a Soldier prepares you to succeed at whatever you select as your goals.
Positioning Statement
Being a Soldier strengthens you today and for the future because the Army develops your
potential through relevant and challenging training, shared values and personal experience.
Soldiers consistently take pride in making a difference for themselves, their families and the
Nation.
Support
 Enlisted: Army skills; leadership and teamwork training; educational opportunities
 Officer: Leadership and management development of each cadet/officer
 Emotional assurance for both: pride in making a difference
This is a sample of the main value proposition. We have more than one.

10. Advertising
 The Advertising Division oversees production of
TV commercials, all print products (every product in
recruiting stations, direct mail, advertisements, etc),
and personal give away items (pens, pencils, coffee
mugs, backpacks, etc.).
 During FY09 we produced 15 television
commercials, 300+ support and web videos, 13
print ads, over 14 million pieces of direct mail, 8
radio ads, over 21 million pieces of collateral
(brochures, posters, etc), more than 70 digital
banners, and over 175 personal presentation items.
 The final advertising campaign I was responsible
for was for recruiting officers, an area the Army had
not previously invested in outside of West Point
and ROTC and never done together.
 Through a separate agency we managed a
licensing program, the only service to do so, which
resulted in over $2 million being raised to benefit
Soldiers.

11. Specific Communications Programs
• Active
Pre-Prospects
• Reserve Prospects
Influencers
• ROTC Hispanic
African-American
• Army Medical Department
• Chaplain Corps
• Judge Advocate General Corps
• Army Bands
• Reenlistment
• Reserve Prior Service
• OCS/WOFT
• Special Forces
• 09L Translator Aide
• Warrant Officer
Other value propositions require for special missions.

12. Digital
 The Digital Division oversees all digital advertising,
recruiting specific social media and the
GOARMY.COM website, with quarterly updates on
website costing over $10 million.
 In FY2009 we begin to shift our emphasis to digital
marketing and for the first time began a campaign
to target prospects that were less propensed to join
the military, along with their parents, by leveraging
an Army astronaut who spent two months on the
International Space Station and became the first
person to use Twitter from the International Space
Station.

13. Advertising
 The Outreach Division oversees all recruiting
related events.
 Highlights include NASCAR, NHRA,
All American Bowl, Spring Break and numerous
multicultural events. Over 200 events annually.
 Ever a challenge to produce a program with good
ROI we were able to leverage our partnership with
Stewart-Haas Racing to benefit wounded warriors
as part of the Prelude to the Dream race. As part of
the program we provided our sponsors with a first
hand experience with Soldiers so they could talk
about their experiences with authenticity and not
from talking points provided by our PR team. This
included
Tony Stewart and Tony Schumacher at Fort Knox
and Ryan Newman at Fort Bragg.

14. National Event Marketing
 All-American Bowl
 Regional Mobile Exhibits
 Virtual Army Experience
 NHRA/Yes Program
 NASCAR/ED Program
 Spring Break

15. Public Relations & Event Partnerships
 National Council of LaRaza
 Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)
 Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC)
 League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
 Black Engineer of the Year Award
 Essence Music Festival
 National Urban League
 Future Farmers of America
 Skills USA
 Planning for Life Program
 Reaches Hispanic & African-American pre-prospects and prospects
 Black History and Hispanic Heritage Months
 Patriot Season (Army Birthday)

16. Decision & Communications Continuum
Become Become Seek Become Contract Affirm
Aware Intrigued Info a Lead Decision
Public Relations
TV, Channel 1
Print
Regional Radio, OOH, Print
Online Media
Direct Marketing
Nationally Driven Events
Website
Local Traffic Driving Ads
Local Events Local Events
Recruiter Station Merchandising
Recruiter Sales Materials
Future Soldier Activities

17. Dave’s 2 cents on social media

18. Working Definition
Social networking is the creation of connections
between individuals and advertisers who share a
common interest in order to create new
conversations that add measurable value
to a brand, product or service.
Viral Marketing
The process of creating the potential for exponential growth in a
message's exposure and influence, usually refers to the pass-
along of some element or content that is usually online
Buzz
Generally considered an outcome resulting from large numbers
of individuals talking about a product, service or brand
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Activities that companies undertake to generate personal, often
in-person, recommendations as well as referrals for brand
names, products and services

19. Is Social Networking new….NOPE…just the tools!
There were four main purposes of the Declaration:
ü Getting reluctant colonists on board
ü Explaining the colonists' position on the purpose of government
ü Listing the colonists' grievances against King George III to show the legitimacy of
their actions to others
ü To encourage foreign nations to help them

20. Why Social Networking is Important
• 78% of consumers trust recommendations from other
consumers (1)
• 71% of 13-24 year olds consume user-generated content (2)
• 35% of executives have read a blog in the last month (3)
• 40% of today’s consumers are creating their own
entertainment (4)
• 51% of consumers are watching and reading content
created by other consumers (5)
Sources:
1. Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool: Nielsen Global Survey, The Nielsen Company, October 2007
2. Harrison Group/Deloitte Touche Survey, March 2007
3. Business Elite: USA 2007 Survey, Ipsos Media, October 2007
4. State of the Media Democracy: Deloitte & Touche Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, August 2007
5. State of the Media Democracy: Deloitte & Touche Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, August 2007

21. Emerging Role of Social Media Networks
: which stage each social media network plays a role at
Social Media Networks
Gaming Sites
Website Blog
Or Apps
Role
• Hub, modular • Provide • Give a flavor • Facilitate to • Use as • Demonstrate • Help
& widgetize content to of life and Interact/ appropriate the reality of customers
content for learn about experience of connect with for younger being in the connect with
people to put life and certain clients our prospects customers Army to clients or
on their own experience in products and include use of customer
sites, blogs, the Army • Drive to influencers. NASCAR and service
etc. • Drive to website • Help people NHRA teams. • Allow to ask
website to learn about • Demonstrate deeper
the brand. elements of questions
the marketing • Real time
campaign. response
Stage
Appeal of Broadest Drive people to
1
Segment 1 website
Experience 2 2
Customer Drive people to
Relationship
3 3 Drive people to website
website Drive people to
Management website or engage
with them on the
site using
Sales 4 4
discussion board
website should
provide links to Drive people to
other social media
appropriate
networks location based on
their questions
Social media should play a vital role in building awareness, enabling customers to
experience our clients products/services, as well as helping to collect critical
information

22. Encourage Target Audience Participation
Ensuring that activity is driven exclusively by our target audiences will help
build a high level of trust in programs
 Modern web users’ trust is earned, not given, so it’s imperative
that we leave as little a “footprint” as possible
 As little reactive moderation as possible (e.g., don’t let community see you
remove content after the fact)
 Let others respond to negative comments.
 Establish ground rules on what will get a comment deleted. (e.g., obscene
language, inappropriate comments, spam, etc)
 Customers prefer interactions with each other to receiving
“marketing speak” about why they should consider or buy new
products / services
 December 2008 Web 2.0 Research confirms this

23. Connectivity & Conversation = You
1980s 1990s 2000s
Mass Precision Social
Marketing Marketing Marketing
• Tell & Sell • Demonstrated • Publishing
Characteristics
• Brand Positioning Interest • Potential to go Viral
• Reach & Frequency • Benefit-Based • Shared interest
• Targeting and • Voice of the individual
Segmentation • Lateral connectivity
• Broadcast Networks • Direct Mail • Format
Vehicles
• General Interest • Search Engine independence
Magazines Optimization • Blogging
• Radio & Outdoor • Direct Response TV • Social Applications
• Threading tools
Differentiation • Creativity • Analytics • Dialogue
Primary Supplier • Advertising • Interactive Agencies • The Company
Agencies

24. Strategic Plan sets ROI expectations
Social marketers must shift ROI focus from traditional, media-driven metrics
to more progressive, participatory metrics
Exposure
Actions Conversations
Metrics
• Page Views • Search • Mentions
• Visits Engine • Comments
• Unique Entries • Advocacy
Visitors • Clicks • Influencers
• Time on Site • Downloads • Attitude Shift
• Referrers • Ongoing • Brand
• Reach Usage Favorability/
• Ratings Sentiment
• Pass Along
Traditional Progressive,
Media-driven Metrics 24 ROI
Participatory Metrics

25. We now return you…

26. Social Media - Recruiting
 Army Strong Stories
 Blog
 YouTube Channel
 Straight from Iraq
 US Army Astronauts

27. Social Media – Army Strong Stories

28. Social Media – Army Strong Stories

29. Social Media – Straight from Iraq

30. Social Media – Straight from Iraq

31. Social Media – US Army Astronauts

32. Social Media – US Army Astronauts

33. Social Media – Is this social…hmmm

34. Social Media – The “Big Army”
 Social Media Rules and Regulations
 Public Affairs vs. Recruiting
 “The Army Experience Center”

35. Social Media – The Army Experience Center
This is why you
need rules, policies
and a trained
community manager

36. SO WHAT??
 Learn your customers and trust your instincts
 Does the agency know your business better than you?
 Awards mean nothing…focus on ROI!
 Challenge your agency to speak to their other clients
 Read…Read…Read
 Watch those in other businesses…otherwise you’re a follower
 Understand the rules of social media…it’s a conversation
 Establish ground rules
 Let your allies defend you
 Have a communication plan and apply the tools that fit
 Is Social Media a PR tool or a Marketing tool??

37. Questions?
www.DavidALee.com