It's Official

Today marks the official start of Army Strong.

I'd talked about it about a month ago, and since then that original commercial has really grown on me. I like the music, I like the imagery, and the message works. That commercial would get me to go online and check out the Army, were I not approaching 12 years of service already. I don't know how it would work on a younger generation, but I guess we'll be learning soon.

The "Army Strong" branding material should be arriving soon. We've been told they'd be here today, but UPS or FedEx usually don't come until later in the morning or early afternoon.

I've already got some of my COI/VIPs asking me for the new Army Strong trinkets. Would that I could give them some. My station is working the NASCAR race at PIR this weekend. However since the Army isn't actually sponsoring a car in this race we're not getting the really sweet interactive truck. Instead it's a bunch of recruiters, some quick set-up tents, a rock wall, and an H3. There might be a football toss there as well. For those curious about such things NASCAR is charging about $10 per square foot for space on the concourse for us to do this set-up. I've seen Italian marble that didn't cost $10 sq/ft.

I don't know what the budget hit is for the sponsoring of a race car, but try and follow along with me here. This weekend if Veteran's Day Weekend. And today the Army is rolling out a new billion dollar advertisement campaign. There is a NASCAR race this weekend. I'm assuming that some NASCAR rule prevented the Army from sponsoring a car this weekend. Maybe somehting in a contract with the car's owner. I don't know. 'Cause Lord knows it strikes me as a missed opportunity to not sponsor a vehicle in the NASCAR race on Veteran's Day Weekend, the same week you're beginning a whole new ad campaign. I've doubted the value of a race car as a way to attract recruits, but it'f we're going to do it shouldn't we strive to do it on a weekend that screams "sponsor a car this weekend!"?

I'm just a lowly recruiter. I'm not an advertising guru like my super-smart sister. I'm not some high ranking decision maker in the Army. I'm not a race official. But hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for Army Strong, and an opportunity to have that pretty black and gold race car going round-and-round on the same weekend America is honoring her veterans and the Army is introducing a new slogan and campaign, with national media coverage of a very popular sporting event, and we don't have a dog in the race. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if we see of the the 30 or 60 seconds spots during the race which does not have an Army car running.

Anyways, if you want to see the new commercials be watching The CW, CMT, Court TV, Discovery, Food, Fuse, G4, Hallmark, HGTV, History Channel, Lifetime, MTV, MTV2, MTVU, Sci Fi, Soap, Spike, TNT, TVLand and USA around 8 EST tonight.