I Want YOU for US Army

[Padraig]

I see the Army has since taken down the video

[Maximilian]

I see the Army has since taken down the video

Because the black guy who is the narrator was arrested.

https://apnews.com/article/army-jonathan-majors-arrest-ad-campaign-c9b15a3e9ce45bbef499fc5269098c6a

Army quickly plans new ads after Jonathan Majors' arrest

The Army is working to quickly pull together some new recruiting ads to air during the NCAA's Final Four basketball games this weekend, after being forced to yank commercials that featured actor Jonathan Majors, in the wake of his arrest last Saturday.

Army leaders had been excited to feature Majors in the ads, as a key part of their new campaign aimed at reviving the service's struggling recruiting numbers — which fell far short of their enlistment goal last year. They believed the ads would capitalize on Majors' popularity coming off his recently movies "Creed III" and "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" — hoping it would help them reach the youth audience.

Last weekend, however, they pulled the ads off the air when Majors was arrested in New York on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment. New York City police said the actor was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30-year-old woman. But a lawyer for Majors, Priya Chaudhry, has said there is evidence clearing Majors and that the actor "is provably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows."

Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army marketing, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that in the past week the Army was able to avoid any loss of of the planned $70 million advertising buy, either by postponing ads or replacing them with other pre-existing commercials that were quickly updated.

The ads were set to appear on television, online on places such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and on digital and physical billboards, including on buses. That ad purchase was the main portion of the campaign, which had a total cost of $117 million.

"We are absolutely able to utilize a majority of what we have invested," Fink said in an interview. "We think that we'll have some brand new creative ads in time for the Women's Final Four on Friday."

He said that the Army gathered "an enormous amount" of content and footage for the two commercials — titled "Overcoming Obstacles" and "Pushing Tomorrow" — that featured Majors as the narrator.

"A majority of that content did not contain our main narrator. ... So we have a ton of content to go back to, to create basically new commercials new ads, if we need to," Fink said. "The campaign is full steam ahead."

[Maximilian]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/jonathan-majors-arrest-scrubbed-army-ad-campaign-1235360997/

Inside Jonathan Majors' Scrubbed Army Ad Campaign
The new recruitment initiative — iced after Majors' Mar. 25 arrest for an alleged assault — had aimed to enlist Gen Z, for whom "patriotism doesn't really play."
BY GARY BAUM MARCH 27, 2023 11:09AM

Jonathan Majors' ad campaign for the U.S. Army, pulled after his Saturday arrest for allegedly assaulting a woman during a domestic dispute and since scrubbed from the organization's official channels, was no ordinary sequence of commercials. The two spots, filmed in the Southern California area in January, were crucial components of a much larger ongoing rebranding effort for the military force as it pivots its recruitment message for Gen Z in the years following the Afghanistan drawdown.

In the days prior to Majors' arrest (in a statement the Army said it was "deeply concerned by the allegations"), The Hollywood Reporter had spoken with the campaign's architects about its rollout: Major General Alex Fink, head of Army Enterprise Marketing — equivalent to a corporate chief marketing officer — as well as John Carstens, executive creator director of Team DDB, its ad firm. Both discussed why Majors, whose criminal defense attorney has announced he's "completely innocent," was their ideal front man. According to Carstens, he fit the needs of their creative brief, which called for a figure of Gen Z mentorship age, "someone who could be a big brother or big sister to the young adult making this decision," who possessed an "appropriate physical and moral presence" to pull off the script.

Carstens noted of the new campaign: "Patriotism is not the point. Patriotism doesn't really play with our Gen Z audience. Different people have different interpretations of it. So, it's not going through history to salute the flag and that being a reason to serve in the Army. It must be something people right now think they're interested in — protecting and defending Americans, as opposed to somebody's idea of what America is or what America ought to be. So, we wanted to find examples to make an argument that is relevant to what's in it for me in the future I want to have, and the dent in the universe that I want to make."

The Majors spots had been in high-visibility rotation, including during the NCAA's ongoing March Madness basketball tournament. They would've been broadcast during the championship game as well. Now the Army has put them on hold.

[Josephine87]

Only 10 million people watched March Madness last year. The Army spent 100+ million on this ad campaign...how does that even pay off?! Why not increase the sign on bonus instead of throwing money away? Remember the inane ads a few years ago where the drill sergeant looks down on the guy who joined to be a soldier but approves of the guy who wants to be a graphic designer? Inane. I am happy to see the military go down the toilet considering how much the government would love to (illegally) use it against people like me (or getting us into WW3).

[clau clau]

Only 10 million people watched March Madness last year. The Army spent 100+ million on this ad campaign...how does that even pay off?! Why not increase the sign on bonus instead of throwing money away? Remember the inane ads a few years ago where the drill sergeant looks down on the guy who joined to be a soldier but approves of the guy who wants to be a graphic designer? Inane. I am happy to see the military go down the toilet considering how much the government would love to (illegally) use it against people like me (or getting us into WW3).

At this point ... what does it matter.

The US Government is pissing money away like water in Ukraine.

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury
-- George Washington.

I prefer the fairytale version of this sentiment though, by the Brothers Grimm.

They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of fat, to be sure, was still in its place, but it was empty. "Alas," said the mouse, "now I see what has happened. Now it comes to light. You are a true friend. You ate everything when you were serving as a godfather. First top off, then half done, then ..."

"Be quiet!" cried the cat. "One more word, and I will eat you too."

"All gone" was already on the poor mouse's lips. She had scarcely spoken it before the cat sprang on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. You see, that is the way of the world.
-- Cat and Mouse in Partnership (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm)
-- https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm002.html

[Greg]

To be fair the 150 billion they spent on Ukraine so far is peanuts compared to what they spend on the gulf war and Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most of it is recycled back to the USA.