The Army wants to ditch ‘Army Strong’ for a new slogan

Groups across the country are still trying to figure out the best ways to connect with the next generation of American adults — and that includes the U.S. Army.

Although there is certainly some debate over the exact birth years that encompass the millennial generation, there’s been a large cultural conversation in recent years about the people born roughly between the mid-to-late-1980s through to the year 2000, and what makes this cohort unique from the generations before them.

As businesses and advertisers struggle to pinpoint what it is that modern young adults want most out of life, the nation’s military is also revising its strategy to recruit them. For a little over a decade, the Army’s slogan has been “Army Strong,” but as it continues a struggle to meet recruitment goals, the military branch’s leadership is analyzing its marketing strategy in hopes of finding a message that will resonate with people between the ages of 18 and 24.

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“One of the major responses we get when we survey folks who don’t have experience with military service is strength, so we know the ‘Army Strong’ resonates … but I don’t think it tells the story, the full story of being a soldier,” Army Sergeant Major Daniel Dailey told reporters on June 25, according to Military.com. “‘Army Strong’ is a good, I think, bumper sticker, ad campaign, but it doesn’t tell the story, so I think that we’ve got to do a better job telling the story of being a soldier.”

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In its next slogan, the Army hopes to recapture some of the success it had with slogans past, including “Be All You Can Be,” which was the branch’s slogan from 1980 to 2001. According to Dailey, it was one of the Army’s most successful campaigns in its long history.

“‘Be All You Can Be’ was a national identity to the Army … it is still today,” he told Military.com.

Dailey went on to say that the new slogan must strike a balance between appealing to young people as well as those in older generations, such as their parents and grandparents, who can often have a strong influence on their younger counterparts.

Do you have ideas for the Army’s next slogan?