- The US Navy is recruiting for positions on its submarines on Reddit.
- The navy has confronted recruitment challenges lately, forcing it to get artistic.
- The Navy’s marketing campaign contains actions to interact Reddit customers in submarine-related duties.
The US Navy is searching for extra tech-savvy recruits to make up the lower than 1% of sailors who serve on submarines, and it thinks Reddit is likely to be the perfect place to search out them.
The US Army isn’t any stranger to gimmicky recruitment campaigns.
There have been these 1987 advertisements that in contrast becoming a member of the Marines to being a medieval fantasy knight. The Simpsons even parodied the phenomenon in 2001 when Bart’s short-lived boyband, the “New Children on the Blecch,” launched a high hit that subliminally inspired youngsters to hitch the Navy.
Whereas Navy advert campaigns could make enlisting seem to be an thrilling journey, some navy wings have seen difficulties in recruitment lately.
Final 12 months, the Military despatched letters to 1,900 active-duty troopers who had been relieved of their duties after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, asking them to return again. Based on NPR, specialists say the proportion of younger and bodily match Individuals ready to hitch the navy has been shrinking over time.
To seek out its “subsequent technology of submariners,” the US Navy is now seeking to Reddit to search out recruits with “a uncommon mix of mind and curiosity,” in line with VML, the advertising and marketing company behind the Navy’s new Reddit marketing campaign. The Navy and VML partnered to create the brand new “Sub Hunter” marketing campaign, wherein VML says Redditors may have entry to actions that use expertise Navy submarine crew members will need to have, like deciphering sonar recordings.
The marketing campaign will supply clues about well-known occasions and submarines in Navy historical past for Reddit customers to decipher. Redditors may have entry to redacted coordinate knowledge from well-known Navy historic occasions and a set of submarine recordings with a hidden, encrypted sound-byte that customers will take heed to “similar to a Navy Sonar Technician” to uncover the message, VML says.
Ryan Blum, VML chief artistic officer, mentioned within the assertion that the marketing campaign’s objective is to look “deep into the world of subreddits” to search out the “particular sort of individual” that it takes to serve on a Navy submarine.
“We all know lower than 1% of future sailors qualify to serve on a submarine,” Blum mentioned. “These on-line communities are teeming with passionate, educated people, and we’re difficult them to find one thing they did not even know they had been searching for.”
The Navy didn’t instantly return a request for remark concerning the Reddit marketing campaign.
