The Army Continuous Process Improvement Office (CPIO) Leads Study Into Army’s Marketing and Advertising Recruiting Strategy (MARS)

Actionable Recommendations to Effectively Forecast, Allocate, and Distribute Marketing Resources are Underway

In March 2023, the U.S. Army launched an aggressive marketing and advertising initiative to boost recruitment numbers by building upon its iconic 1980s’ “Be All You Can Be” slogan. This was unveiled as part of the Army’s new modern brand and marketing roll out, aimed at attracting today’s youth. And while the campaign was deemed a success by industry standards, leading to a 78% increase in brand recall (a qualitative measure of the consumer's ability to remember the name of a brand), according to Acting Chief of Army Enterprise Marketing Ignatios Mavridis in an article in Defense One (Defense One August 2023, recruitment levels still fell short.

Military recruitment is the most pivotal pursuit in the Army’s mission to maintain a formidable and undefeatable defense force. However, with a confluence of factors such as medical, education, and legal ability issues, along with concerns about physical and emotional trauma, it’s now more important than ever that our marketing and advertising hits the mark to today’s youth. Since advertising is typically the first touch point that a potential recruit has with our organization, it’s important to remember that even when the message is effective, if the process in which it is delivered, and/or the follow-through isn’t clear and consistent, then it will have simply fallen on deaf ears.

That’s why the Army Recruiting and Retention Task Force (ARTF), which was established by the Secretary of the Army in August 2022 to identify opportunities for long-term recruitment change and to close the accessions gap, has been exploring the effectiveness of the Army’s marketing and advertising strategies to identify potential areas for improvement. In October 2022 and December 2022, the ARTF conducted two Design Thinking Workshops to reimagine Army marketing, advertising, and strategic communications to enhance recruiting results.

The team offered recommendations from the design workshops, which were to (1) Review resources and workflow processes, (2) Identify enhanced lateral coordination measures; and (3) Review processes for marketing funds. In January 2023, the ARTF, supporting the Assistant Secretary of the Army Manpower & Reserve Affairs (ASA (M&RA), recruited the Office of Enterprise Management (OEM) Continuous Process Improvement Office (CPIO) to identify process-related improvement opportunities for the Army’s Marketing and Advertising Recruiting Strategy (MARS). OEM CPIO was also tasked with leveraging the overarching results of ARTF’s October and December 2022 Design Thinking Workshops.

Throughout its research, the team found one consistent theme throughout its study - the Army’s consistent misunderstanding of the processes to forecast, allocate, and distribute (request) resources to affect recruiter efficiency and effectiveness with respect to MARS. This results in missed prospect engagement opportunities that can be attributed to the following challenges:

• Communication Breakdown: Marketing and advertising stakeholders across various organizations are not openly exchanging information.
• Policy Misperceptions: Stakeholder perceptions of marketing and advertising directives, regulation, law, and/or governance for marketing and advertising in recruiting vary.
• Duplicative Purchase Request Process: A Purchase Request Process (PRP) is required every time a team member or department would like to make a purchase. This includes ad buys, collateral, materials, etc. The long and duplicative PRP is a result of challenges bridging Communications, Processes, Policy, and Systems.

To help mitigate these opportunities, the CPIO team, directed by Dr. Charles Brandon, Office of the Under Secretary of the Army (OSA), OEM, led an intensive, 90-day initiative to study MARS with two main objectives: 1) Increase understanding of coordination of efforts between Army Enterprise Marketing Office (AEMO), Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and U.S. Army Recruitment (USAREC) as it relates to advertising and marketing and 2) Identify barriers, challenges, and gaps in communication, policy, implementation, and execution of marketing and advertising processes.

Key Findings 

Working with lead analysts Dr. Madeline Bodoh, LSS Master Black Belt, and Major Dane Buckley, LSS Black Belt, the CPIO team focused on the four areas of MARS and identified improvement opportunities for each.

• Communications – lack of trust and a breakdown of sharing of information across stakeholder groups
• Policy – misperception of marketing and advertising directives, regulation, law, and/or governance for marketing and advertising in recruiting
• Processes – funding to support marketing objectives and then number of marketing officers assigned to help recruiters
• Systems – inconsistencies with the inputs and outputs of the Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) system

Recommendations

From the 90-day study, the CPIO team offered 11 recommendations across four categories to improve the efficiency and effectiveness for MARS. Many of the recommendation have been implemented, as noted below.

Communications 

• Enable key decision-making input: AEMO to ensure USAREC G-7 and Marketing Directorates are included in quarterly decision-making forums for prioritizing activities greater than the $10,000 threshold. (COMPLETE). 
• Emphasize a unity of effort: AEMO to improve communications on their duties and responsibilities to USAREC and distribute the “AEMO 101” decks for increased transparency. (COMPLETE)  
• Restore trust by:

1.    Disseminate the ASA(M&RA) approved Annual Marketing Plan to build a common operating picture. (COMPLETE) 

2.    AEMO publish annual assessments of marketing effectiveness. (COMPLETE)

• Improve partnerships: The findings challenge the status quo relationship between USAREC and AEMO to emphasize a supplier-customer centric role rather than subordinate-authoritative. Recommend initiating a Systems Thinking Approach. (COMPLETE) 

Policy

•  Align forecasting tools: ASA(M&RA) granted the authority to execute low-cost local events with a suggested cost of no more than $250 to the Recruiting Battalion Command (pilot program). (COMPLETE)
• Improve requirement-informed program objective memorandums (POM) forecasting:

1.    AEMO will align forecasting needs with the calendar and budget year appropriations. (COMPLETE) 

2.    AEMO educates USAREC and commanders on the critical planning milestones for the POM. (COMPLETE) 

Summary: The shift from the 2015 USAREC Regulation 601-208 to AEMO’s 2021 AR 601-208 was a significant reduction of authorities and autonomy for USAREC. Reinforcement of USAREC’s role in forecasting processes, along with minor restorations of authorities for funding allocations, will help improve communications across echelons.

Processes 

• Enable data-driven decision-making: USAREC to streamline its funding authorization processes for event purchases utilizing business process reengineering framework. (This action is pending funding considerations)
• Implement skills gap across resource planning:

1.    TRADOC and OEMA reviewed the strategy for Army Enterprise Marketing and Behavioral Economics Officers (FA58s) to avoid assigning staff with no background in marketing to key positions. (COMPLETE)

2.    USAREC requested that the U.S. Army Manpower Analysis Agency (M&RA) conduct a manpower study and/or develop manpower model to determine requirements in support of the Marketing Mission. (COMPLETE)

• Create business rules to set expectations: USAREC and AEMO will devise acceptable process lead times and cycle times to submit, review, prioritize, and approve purchase requests once staffed in EMM. (COMPLETE)

Summary: Inefficient staffing processes and key personnel shortages exacerbate problems in coordination across echelons. Streamlining the processes and informing them with data collected during execution, along with appropriate allocation of personnel, will reduce these problems.

System

• Transition resource request processes entirely within EMM:

1.    USAREC and AEMO completely integrating the resource request process into the EMM. (This action is pending funding considerations)

2.    Capitalizing on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate high-volume, low-value efforts to focus on higher value tasks. (This action is pending funding considerations)

• Weaponize the customer support systems: USAREC G-7 to conduct an assessment of the current data capture system within EMM. (This action is pending funding considerations)

Summary: EMM has the potential to synchronize efforts while reducing manpower, enabling data-driven decision-making, and resource allocations. However, system analysis, funding improvements, and feedback enforcement is necessary.

Results 

US Army Cadet Command (USACC), AEMO, TRADOC, ASA (M&RA), OEM CPIO, and USAREC collaborated to define the key performance indicators (KPIs) required to determine forecasting, allocation, and distribution resources to affect recruiter proficiency and success with respect to MARS. The largest impact on the recruiter is arming them with the tools, knowledge, and support to disseminate the Army message to potential recruits while saving him or her time by mitigating process redundancies, communication breakdowns, inefficient funding, and approval process times.

To date, more than half of the team’s recommendations have been implemented. Quick wins, particularly within the communications category, have already been achieved. However, larger, more systemic changes related to funding issues, including data-driven, decision-making funding request approval processes and EMM system data cleansing, will require future discussions.

Moving Forward

The working group continues to meet on a monthly basis to address emerging challenges or opportunities as they arise. The current focus is on sustainability of the actions that have been implemented, while seeking ways to push the remaining recommendations forward.