The role of interactive marketing and how it influences individual and group behavior must become a greater part of the debate about our digital democratic future. The U.K.’s Royal Navy’s interactive “Get The Message” multimedia ad campaign just won the “Grand Prix” at the fourth Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards. Read this excerpt from New Media Age Magazine’s special supplement on the Navy’s successful digital marketing effort to drive recruitment.
“The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the job of recruiting for the armed forces one of the toughest briefs out there. Recruitment levels have been on the wane for several months, with many servicemen and women leaving when their tour of duty is over, and not enough new recruits signing up owing to preconceptions about what to expect from a life in the forces. This was the problem facing the Royal Navy, which wanted to attract a demographically broad audience of 15-24-year-old adults to dispel myths about what it’s like to be part of the Royal Navy, and to show the human face of the force so it would be considered as a viable career path…Digital creative agency Glue London and mobile agency Sponge
came together to meet the challenge. The target audience was broken down into three attitudinal groups: ‘optimistic achievers’, ‘enthusiastic followers’ and ‘unfulfilled potentials’. It was identified that these groups had different recruitment journeys online, going through the phases of inspiration, consideration, information seeking and persuasion…Lifestyle, gaming, sports and music sites were used to reach the target audience and creative executions were specifically designed to suit these sites, while being as impactful and dramatic as possible…a personalised interactive piece of viral content was created that enabled potential recruits to engage in a deeper level than is possible in an ordinary ad. Users went online to choose a specific branch of the Royal Navy…the create their own message within the video content that could be sent to an email address or mobile phone…The campaign was a resounding success…secured 50,000 emails for the Royal Navy to use…Interaction rates were high…the ‘Mine’ ad… [had] almost 2m people [interacting with it].”
