"Be All You Can Be" Ad Campaign

 

The cultural text I will be examining is the newest U.S. Army ad campaign “Be All You Can Be”, specifically the teaser trailer they released on Youtube to introduce the campaign. The campaign was started in March of 2023, released months earlier than originally planned due to scarily low recruitment numbers. The Army fell 15,000 recruits short of its goal number in 2022, and they are hoping this ad campaign will get more young Americans in uniform, something the Army has been struggling with immensely as of late. 

The teaser trailer is around two minutes long and its goal is to explain this new movement and send forth the messages that the Army finds to be most important. The trailer opens with the question, “What does it mean when people say America is the land of opportunity?". It then proceeds to show a very diverse group of soldiers, with many races, ethnicities, and genders being portrayed answering that question. There is a big emphasis that America is “the nation of endless opportunities” and these endless opportunities give people the power to discover, redefine themselves, and to challenge themselves. It then goes to all of the troops saying that the Army gives you the ability to “be all you can be” which of course is the ad slogan. The troops explain that the US Army gives people an open field to explore what they do best, with the “best tools, best training, and best technology in the world”. One of the last phrases that is said in the ad is “winning matters”. As for the visuals that are used in the ad, it is mostly interviews with soldiers who seem to be in a training area, but there are also a couple videos of troops skydiving, actively doing training drills, and handing out water to children in a warzone. 

The thing that I found to be most interesting about this commercial was the fact that despite this being an ad for the US Army, there is no footage or talk of combat or anything to do with fighting. This is extremely interesting because combat is the role that the majority of people who join will be partaking in. This shows that the military is aware that a large group of the younger generation is anti-war and that making a commercial that focuses on the combat parts of the army will not help their younger recruitment numbers at all.  While this is obviously a pro-war commercial as it was made and funded by the US Army, it tries to talk about all the other parts of the army, the technology, learning opportunities, and the challenge, instead of the combat.

This commercial tends to play into the American fantasy that America is the BEST and strongest nation. The word “best” is used by just about every soldier in the commercial as a way to describe the opportunities that are given to you by the army. They also press the idea that the American military only wins, it never loses. I do not think this was the best way for them to go about this ad campaign. The younger generation seems to be more aware that the US military are not always necessarily the good guys, as shown in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Since we are in a state of perpetual war, it is easier for civilians to see the cracks in the military and the mistakes they make. 

The messages behind this ad reminded me of Occupation Dreamland as many of the soldiers who were interviewed stated that they joined the army as a way to figure who they were and what they eventually wanted out of life.This ad is pushing the Army as a place for people to try new things and have endless possibilities and opportunities to find what you are good at.  The Army is basically saying through this ad that war is a good place to experience what life truly is and a way to discover yourself. 

While I see both the good and bad in this advertisement, I think the Army overall did a good job with the changing context that our country is constantly going through. How my generation views war and the American military is very different from how parents view it. Our generation overall has a more negative view towards war and the military due to us growing up during the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are hard stains to erase from the minds of civilians, but I do think that through this commercial the Army is making strides in the correct direction. It was not a perfect commercial, but I do think it will appeal to younger Americans who are not quite sure what they want to do with their adult life yet.

References

Britzky, Haley. “US Army debuts new ad campaign as it struggles to hit recruitment goals.” CNN, 8 March 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/army-new-recruiting-commercial-be-all-you-can-be/index.html. Accessed 4 April 2024.

U.S. Army. Be All You Can Be. 6 March 2023. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx-2R9swDg.