“Fight, fight, fight to understand your audience”

So I was watching television the other evening and I saw this incredible recruitment advertisement for the Canadian Armed Forces. It had a cool (temperature cool) look to it, gritty imagery, quiet soundtrack, with no real sell to it at all.

Every ten seconds or so and after a few jump cuts the image would freeze in a semi out-of-focus frame of the action. The text “Fight” would fade up and then, after a second, more text would fade in beside fight. This text varied from things like desperation, fear and so on.

I saw two versions of this and both times I totally stopped what I was doing and was enthralled. The footage is of Canadian Forces troops in action. They were loading sandbags, driving though bombed out towns, traveling through fire and flood situations, transporting at risk families, flying into combat areas, performing sea rescues and other similar situations.

These recruiting advertisements for Canadian Forces have a totally different vision than ones before. They are very realistic to the tasks that you may be involved as a member of the Forces. There is no glam and the test states outright that you are fighting, will be required to fight and can expect to be involved in some type of fighting.

Wow! This is refreshing. Not that the other ads they did previously were misguided but these new ones have a entirely different focus. These ads not only target a different audience but they are recruiting a different type of person. I think that previously, to enroll in the Forces you may have had different expectations. There was good pay, travel and maybe a possibility of going on a combat mission. But now things are different. Combat and risk are a prominent part of being in the Forces. That is a reality.

I wonder if there were internal rumblings in the Forces about the new role that armed forces everywhere have. Were soldiers and potential recruits voicing the increased levels of danger? The real missions that soldiers were going to were now having a much higher level of risk. Was this being reflected in recruitment numbers?

No matter what was happening someone noticed that they needed to take a different tack with their marketing. They realize that they would need people who wanted to be part of these missions. So the Forces crafted a campaign that showed exactly what they can be expected to run into. It separates those who might choose to go into the Forces and those who want to go in to the Forces. I’m sure those who enroll now will have a longer stay within this organization because they want to be there. They have bought in.

Great, but again, why rattle on about this?

It really simple and a very important point to remember about creating video (and probably marketing in general). Not only do you need to determine who is your audience but also to clearly decide what it is you trying to tell them. This will change how you create your visuals and how you edit them together.

The better you answer these base questions, the stronger you message will be and the better a team like us at CM Creative can craft you story through video.

There are visual decisions at every step that directors, producers, cinematographers and editors make to tell a story a certain way. Without a clear vision you may still tell your story well but I’d rather tell your story great!

This is why I try and get as much back-story to projects as possible. It is important for me to understand how it fits with other aspects of your business and to look as far forward as possible to see how it may be integrated into future projects. Will it become part of a series (could it be)? Do you see this becoming part of your online presence? Does this tie in with hardcopy information and if so can we integrate it into a DVD ROM product that makes both products cohesive? Do you see other projects that may happen in the future that may require some support footage because we can archive so of the footage for future use? And so on and so on.

The Canadian Forces website is also an excellent example of video use. They have high quality videos (Flash embedded I think) about the different jobs and roles in the forces. This again is an acknowledgement that the next generation of new recruits are heavy Internet users who probably do much of their research about prospective careers via the web.

The Canadian Forces recruitment ads clearly are targeting a specific demographic and type of person. They obviously need that type of person as well, as it must have been a significant budget. But I’m okay with the money spent because I know I’m not that person they are looking for but we obviously need people in those roles who understand what is expected of them and are proud to do it.

CM
www.cmcreative.ca