Defence Forces battling for recruits with £2m advertising campaign over two years

The Defence Forces are hoping to enhance their image and attract recruits through a two-year advertising campaign, to begin later this year. The campaign will have a budget of £2 million (€2.54 million).

Government advertising accounts are awarded after an open tender, the tendering process for which began at the start of the summer.

Twenty agencies submitted outline strategies suggesting how they envisaged the campaign working and in most instances this was accompanied by creative work.

There is now a shortlist of six agencies who have been asked for a more complete presentation. These include McCann Erickson, McConnells, Cawley Nea, Doherty's and Javelin.

A decision on which agency will be awarded the account will be made early next month.

The Defence Forces need between 800 and 1,000 new recruits this year.

While briefing the agencies, they admitted that the forces have a dull image that is unattractive to young people, while only 50 per cent of the forces' target audience are being reached.

The Defence Forces have certainly been low-key advertisers in the past few years, conducting basic recruitment advertising just twice a year.

Agencies report that as potential clients, the forces were very candid about their image problem, acknowledging that young people have a very limited awareness of what the Army, Air Corps and Naval Services actually do.

The idea behind the new campaign is to present the Defence Forces as an exciting, worthwhile and varied career - so it is as much about branding as recruitment.

A spokesman for the Defence Forces said that there is currently "a narrower view of the Defence Forces than we could like".

The recruitment issue is now a pressing one.

The Defence Forces are under pressure to maintain their 10,500-strong membership, to fulfil obligations under the new European Union Rapid Reaction Force, which requires the State to have 850 troops ready and trained by the end of 2003.

In April, the Minister for Defence launched a recruitment drive in a typical PR-type event in Dublin, to which the media were invited to witness Defence Force personnel at work - from a soldier in combats shimmying down a rope onto the deck of the LE R≤is∅n, to a Naval Service speedboat darting around the Liffey.

The advertising is likely to be similarly brash.

The Defence Forces' spokesman said that although the forces were highly impressed by the standard of creative work presented to them, it would take hard work to become as much a part of the public consciousness as the campaign of the 1970s, when its catchline "we are Rangers, mighty mighty Rangers" did the trick.

That campaign picked up awards at advertising festivals in Kinsale, Cannes and New York for its creator Arrow Advertising, and some of the team behind it - the late Mr Tiernan MacBride, Mr Ken Flynn and Mr Russ Russell.

Several Government accounts have come up for pitch in recent months, prompting high interest among agencies.

Twenty-one agencies tendered for the F┴S contract, while the ESB has got 32 expressions of interest from advertising agencies.

After years of minimal advertising when Bewleys relied on its name to sell the product, the brand has become increasingly involved in smart, below-the-line promotions. Its latest is a competition whereby entrants text message their entries (what else?) in the hope of winning a Vespa scooter.

NescafΘ is also running a text-based competition, but this time the prize is a trip to the MTV awards. McCann-Erickson, deviser of NescafΘ's promotion, says it is the first time that a brand has used outdoor advertising as a direct response medium, and text messaging to enter the competition entries.

The dominance of multinational communications groups in the Irish advertising industry means Q2 results for communications groups could have an impact here. Interpublic Group is axing 3,500 jobs due to a net loss for the second quarter, and warned its full-year earnings would fall below analysts' expectations. Its first quarter results prompted 2,200 layoffs.

Interpublic reported a second-quarter net loss of $110.2 million (€122 million), a huge fall from the $166.4 million net income in the same period last year.

This week, US group Cordiant Communications, which has bought Gallagher & Kelly PR, said it aimed to reduce its salary bill by 5 per cent - or an estimated 700 staff. In what has to be a precursor to global job cuts, Grey Global Group's second quarter earnings fell from $5.7 million to $2.4 million.