Army accused of ‘exploiting’ young people’s vulnerability

A BRITISH Army advertising campaign has been accused of targeting millennials while they were suffering from “January blues” in a bid to boost recruitment.

Strategists behind the headlinegrabbing campaign “Your army needs you” factored in how young people would be feeling moving into the new year, according to a briefing document.

The high-profile campaign called on “snowflakes, selfie addicts, class clowns, phone zombies, and me, me, me millennials” to sign up. It suggested that what was seen as a weakness or a flaw by the rest of society could be regarded as a strength by the Army.

The document, seen by The Guardian, said: “Social should be synced with the biggest TV shows that we are launching in and should account for upweights during the launch weekend, especially on [Jan 5 and 6] when the ‘January blues’ are setting in”. The campaign appears to have had some success as more than 1,000 additional people started the process to join the Army after the advert’s release, and applications reached a five-year high.

Some 16,000 people applied to join in January, and visits that month to the Army’s website were up by 78 per cent to 1.5million.

Charlotte Cooper, UK research and campaign officer at Child Soldiers International, said it was “another example of how the Army tries to exploit young people’s emotional vulnerability, instead of encouraging a fully informed, mature and rational decision”.

Col Ben Wilde, assistant director of recruiting, said: “Like all national recruitment campaigns, our adverts are designed to reach a broad range of audiences. This enables our Armed Forces to be representative of the nation they help to keep safe. It should be no surprise that it would focus on major population centres, or increase activity in the new year.”