Pentagon Told to Centralize Command of Recruitment Ads

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines presumably each know best how to push out their distinctive brands in advertisements that result in sign-ups.

But the absence of a central coordinating authority in the Defense secretary’s office hampers the Defense Department’s ability to avoid inappropriate tactics in the interservice competition to land recruits, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

“The unique branding of each service plays a role in the decision of an individual to become a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine and, as such, the department relies on the military services to carry out their own advertising programs,” GAO said in a report to the Armed Services committees. However, “a formal process for coordination of advertising activities among the military service components could improve the department’s ability to leverage resources and thus improve the efficiency of DoD’s advertising activities.”

For fiscal 2017, the department has requested almost $575 million to conduct recruitment advertising.

Auditors’ interviews with staff in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness over the past year also found that the weak coordination made it more difficult for the Pentagon to oversee the services’ compliance with interim guidance released last year on avoiding “inappropriate” activities. These include “paying for recognition or swearing in ceremonies during sports events or the inclusion of items that are personal in nature, typically sports tickets or parking, for which the receipt of those items is not clear or controlled,” GAO said.

The guidance requires a senior military unit official to approve sports marketing contracts, prohibits paying for recognition ceremonies, restricts incentive items that are personal in nature, and requires reporting and analysis on the returns generated by larger sports partnerships.

Modern recruitment advertising seeks to mimic commercial techniques by placing new emphasis on social media and Web outlets while focusing on “awareness, engagement and lead generation,” GAO noted.

“While the components generally follow commercial best practices we identified for evaluating advertising, DoD has not addressed variations in measurable goals among the components or insufficient data that has prevented some components from being able to assess the effectiveness of their advertising activities in generating leads” that produce recruits, it said.

GAO recommended that DoD develop a formal process for coordination among its components on crosscutting advertising issues; ensure that the components fully measure the performance of advertising activities; and issue department-wide policy that defines its oversight of advertising. DoD generally agreed.