The Canadian Armed Forces is telling millennials seeking fulfilling careers that it is ready to take them on.
It’s the military’s first recruitment campaign since 2011 to feature the navy, army and air force together along with special forces members.
In a 60-second cinema and TV spot (which ran during the Super Bowl), Canadian forces are shown doing everything from jumping from a C-130 Hercules aircraft to shouting instructions inside a field hospital and handing out humanitarian supplies.
Meanwhile, a voiceover intones: “We are proud to go where many will not. To defend our values and freedom. To help others at home and abroad. We are trained to protect our country and make the world a safer place. We are the Canadian Armed Forces. That’s our job. And you?”
“There is a generational shift going on in the forces,” says Gavin Drummond, creative director at Ogilvy Montreal, the agency behind the “ready when you are” campaign. As baby boomers are leaving, “now is the time to speak to millennials.”
Drummond says the armed forces aims to hire 10,000 new recruits per year and has to do so by reaching millennials who are looking for personal fulfillment through work. “Luckily the armed forces is truly a job that does that.”
The campaign, which runs until June, also includes an edited 30-second TV version and appears on the military’s website, YouTube and social channels. “Every Canadian will see it,” Drummond says.
Ogilvy did the media planning while Cossette Media handled the media buy.
The campaign has been in development since last June, before the killings of Canadian soldiers last fall in Ottawa and St. Jean, Quebec and Canada’s decision to take part in the coalition campaign against ISIS.
It was filmed at an armed forces base in Petawawa, Ont. “It was an epic undertaking to create a spot like this as it involved organizing massive movements of troops and equipment during a few snowy days in late November, early December,” Drummond says.
A Defence Department report recently tabled in the House of Commons determined the Canadian Forces is short hundreds of full-time members and thousands of reservists, “due to higher than forecasted attrition and other factors.”
The federal government has promised to keep 68,000 full-time military members and 27,000 reservists in uniform, despite declines in defence spending and the closure of 12 military recruiting centres across the country in 2013.
