The U.S. Army’s “Be All You Can Be” branding campaign was first introduced in 1980, and the slogan from the N.W. Ayer Advertising Agency was used until 2001 before being reintroduced in recent years. The old slogan, along with innovative new technologies, has been used by the Army Enterprise Marketing Office to reach expanded audiences and help identify candidates interested in military service.
The efforts paid off as last month, the service announced that it had exceeded fiscal year 2024 (FY24) recruiting goals, with at least 55,300 total accessions.
“The U.S. Army’s recruiting force achieved our 55,000 accessions goal more than a month ahead of schedule, and we are on track to have more than 11,000 in our delayed entry program by the end of the month. This is more than double the goal we set for our delayed entry program and will allow our recruiting efforts for next year to start strong right out of the gate,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth.
Now the U.S. Army is looking to build on that success by upping the recruiting goal by 11% to 61,000 soldiers for fiscal year 2025 (FY25).
Raising the Bar
After three years of failing to meet the annual recruiting goals, and finally reaching it for FY24 the service is responding by announcing it will seek 6,000 more recruits by September 2025. It seeks to build on the current momentum – though Wormuth admitted that it won’t come any easier.
“These challenges are not going away. Fewer than a quarter of Americans are eligible for military service, and fewer than ten percent of young people are interested in serving,” Wormuth said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington D.C. on Monday. “Unemployment is at a historic low: more than sixty percent of high school graduates are going straight to college, and many young people know very little about the Army or what we offer.”
The Army’s “Prep School”
According to Department of Defense (DoD) estimates, fewer than one in four young Americans meets the necessary military service criteria. The Army has sought to ensure that those who may be interested in service yet fail to meet physical or academic standards are given a chance to qualify.
The service expanded its Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which was introduced to aid potential recruits to overcome academic and physical fitness barriers to service, while not sacrificing quality for quantity. More than 90% of participants completed the program and progressed to basic training.
As a result, the 90-day pre-boot camp was expanded with two additional companies at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and two more at Fort Moore, Georgia. For FY24, and as of mid-September, 13,206 trainees in the active component completed the FSPC and entered Basic Training.
In addition, the Army accepted 5,000 recruits into its delayed entry program in FY24, while Wormuth said that recruiters had already secured another 11,000 recruits who will join in 2025 – thus ensuring a strong start for the next fiscal year.
Older Recruits
One notable change that the Army is seeing is that while it is still recruiting younger Americans, they’re not quite as young as they previously were. According to the Army Recruiting Command, the current average age of U.S. Army recruits is 22 years, 4 months, and increasing.
That also fits with the service’s goal to see one-third of its personnel made up of college grads.
TikTok A Missed Opportunity?
Where the U.S. Army could still be missing out is in connecting with members of Generation Z on the social media platform TikTok, due to its Chinese ownership and likely ban in the United States. Military personnel aren’t allowed to use the popular video-sharing app on base, while it is banned on all federal devices.
However, as it remains popular with younger Americans, it could be a missed opportunity. As Military.com reported, the service continues to spend millions for ads on cable TV but has been seeking to move beyond that old-school mindset.
Wormuth acknowledged that the recruiting culture will need to change as much as the military culture, which has adapted greatly to better appeal to Gen-Z.
“We need to talk to the press and the public about what we are trying to do and why it is important,” Wormuth added. “If we do that, real change is possible.”
