Army Marketing Through the Years

The Army has been marketing itself since the Eisenhower years, often with mixed success. The campaigns and slogans vary, but the message largely remains the same: The Army is more than a guarantor of liberty. While the Air Force represents new technology and new domains, the Army represents the nation’s culture, ideas, and principles. More than any other service, the Army is a representation of how the citizens of the United States view themselves. 

The new marketing career field will carry on this grand tradition of promoting not only the virtues of the Army, but also the salubrious qualities of those who volunteer to serve within it. The men and women who market the Army would be well-advised to pay heed to the service’s desperate promotional attempts in the New Look Era. After all, the Army’s brand is best represented not by the space satellites, radars, and cyber systems depicted in its current commercials, but by a vision that’s as old as the Battle of Trenton: a group of dirty, freezing soldiers, scared, wet and tired, taking the fight to the enemy. 

Joe Buccino is an Army Colonel and a resident student at the U.S. Army War College. He previously served as spokesman for the secretary of defense, communications director for the deputy secretary of defense, and communications director for the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division.

Image: Flickr.