Seriously, who approved that new Army commercial?

[JAG2955]

I was drinking beer and watching the Navy-Rutgers game at a friend's house, because I don't have cable. During a commercial break, I saw this piece of filth for the first time:
I seriously thought this was a joke.

Whoever approved that should be forced to clean porta-johns at MCRD with a Q-tip for 12 hours a day until a mandatory 45-year retirement date.

Contrast that to:
Probably my second favorite
My favorite, and the one my mom swears she knew got my brother from the day he signed up

Yes, they're corny, (and pretend that when they raise the sword they say "By the power of Grayskull!"), but they don't show a kid who got beat up in middle school.

Seriously, Army, at least make the graphic designer kid look like a badass PT stud, not some pencil-necked geek.

[Aesop]

Apparently Paul Reubens was unavailable for filming.

Whatever the Army does right (and it's a lot) whoever runs their Recruiting Command needs to be used for tank gunnery practice.

And AFAIK, the only graphic artist (25M Multimedia Illustrator) in the Army worth mentioning was Skippy.

[randy]

Absolutely the best Recruiting commercial of any service

To me it goes to the heart of what being an American military member is about. We sit out on the line in the crappy conditions to keep the barbarians at bay so that the folks "in my home town" never have to know whats out in the darkness.

IMHO they should have taken this concept and made similar commercial for all the services. It certainly beats all the Aim High/Army of One/It's An Adventure Madision avenue crap all hollow.

Oh, also like this one, but they should have cut it off at "...pursuit of all who threaten it" and left off the GI Joesque "Global Force for Good", which comes across as really trying too hard

[Aesop]

Keith David doing v/o ramps the ante up a bit.

But yeah, they should have cut it off a sentence earlier, and probably just subbed in more shots of targets going up in a wall of flame and spray.

But IMHO, the Corps' efforts peaked with this one in 1973: no chicks anywhere in the commercial, and they used the word "men" 13 times in <3 minutes.
Subtle as brick through the window, from back before they went all Lord Of The Rings/D&D in the approach.
Less FX, more reality please.

[Yogimus]

No bull, that video is exactly the message we need to send. We will make you whatever you want to be.

[oilcrash]

I look at the two Marine recruiting commercials and still notice, they tried to recruit enlistment with officers. You don't see the NCO Saber until the 2000's IIRC.

At least the Army commercial is fairly honest, "The Army: It's better than the welfare line."

NB: I have DD214s from both.

[g-man]

No, it gets worse:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ing+strong

Yeah, they've got 2 (count em, TWO) seasons of this crap on youtube, and are working to get it into syndication. The small group of Ops Research Analysts at my recent qual-course who got assigned the envious task of evaluating how well season 1 went along with the current Army Enterprise Brand basically punted. "Well, yeah, what you really need is an evaluation criteria and goals BEFORE you put crap up on the web..."

What's wrong with Army Social Media and PAO in general? Go to Marines.com, AirForce.com, or Navy.com.... and then hit Army.com. Which isn't affiliated with the U.S. Army in any official capacity. They should have made that cyber-squatter a millionaire and been through with it YEARS ago. But nope, we have GoArmy.com, which isn't linked to directly when you hit the 'Join' link at Army.mil... Full-scale clusterfuck.

[Aegis]

I still think one of the best commercials is the SEALs' Footprints. Understated yet pretty damn cool.

[Vonz90]

Ah, it is just a matter of time until the old SNL "We're looking for a few good men" parody commercial is real life.

[Rich Jordan]

"Training to be a community organizer, Drill Sergeant!"

Outstanding...