Uncle Sam Wants Your Kids

Video games are investments of the military, and have taught most kids to shoot and kill by the time they are teenagers. The digital technology in tanks is getting closer and closer to a playstation 2 console. But it’s one thing to raise children to be soldiers and another to actually recruit them.

Xbox 360 water balloon ad

Here is a post from a few days ago. Scary things are happening down South. Judging from the number of recruitment ads for the reserves I have been hearing on the radio, seeing in FHM magazine and the movies, these drill-down tactics incorporated in the states will make their way to Canada soon enough.

Source: Advertising Age, November 28, 2005

The Pentagon's Joint Advertising, Market Research & Studies project has "finely sliced and diced its data enough to determine that the U.S. Army's prospective recruits come from households likely to listen to Spanish radio," while "the reading list at the households of U.S. Marine Corps prospects includes Car Craft, Guns and Ammo and Outdoor Life." Good U.S. Air Force prospects "listen to Nascar on the radio," while U.S. Navy enthusiasts "expect to get married within the next year." To "navigate a fragmented media environment," the Defense Department analyzed military applicants from 2000 to 2004, and identified 18 demographic groups "that provide the highest rate of prospective recruits." These include "Beltway Boomers," "Blue Chip Blues," "Young & Rustic," and "Multiculti Mosaic," as defined by Claritas, a "marketing information resources company." To reach these groups, "direct, interactive and other one-to-one marketing tactics," including email, are used; the Navy is "exploring emerging media such as cellphones and text messaging."