AD BREAKDOWN Magazine's review of advertising

Nurses in the cafe...

THE BRIEF: The British Army needs to recruit health professionals in order to keep functioning

THE MEDIUM: TV, print, outdoor, internet

THE SCRIPT: Two NHS nurses are chatted up by a couple of lads in a cafe. Noticing their tanned skins, the men ask if they have been on holiday. Cut to an army field hospital where the nurses are treating a wounded soldier. The lads ask what they are doing at the weekend, and the girls are shown hard at work in an army training camp. Finally the two lads ask for their phone numbers, and the women reveal their names: "Captain Colley and Lieutenant Reynolds".

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

Army recruiting campaigns have come a long way since Lord Kitchener and "your country needs you". Appeals to patriotism and a promise to "see the world" no longer cut any ice.

These days, the emphasis is on personal fulfilment. Join the forces and set yourself apart from the common herd is the message.

Forget those losers down the pub showing off their new mobiles or doing handbrake turns in the car park, you are out there doing it for real.

... and in training for the TA

Like mobile or car commercials, recruitment ads promise self-expression and a chance to be part of something, but with real substance.

After all, joining the Army - unlike buying a 3G phone or a new car - really can change your life. Or, for that matter, end it.

The benchmark was set by Saatchi and Saatchi's award-winning Be the Best campaign, which virtually doubled the number of recruits between 1993 and 1999.

The latest Territorial Army ads, created by French-owned agency Publicis, parent company of Saatchi and Saatchi, and directed by Peter Cattaneo, of Full Monty fame, are a subtle evolution of this approach, focusing on individual service careers.

It is the first to directly promote TA medical services, which have been much in demand since the start of the war in Iraq, but is also part of a wider push to recruit health professionals. The nurses featured have both recently served overseas.

It's a neat gender role reversal. The women are the action heroes, while the lads are stuck at home practising their stale chat-up lines.

Could you?

As always with good recruitment ads, the key is careful targeting.

The TA - or indeed teaching, policing or working in a hospital - is not for everyone. Only a relatively small minority of people would ever dream of joining up. The trick is to turn that idle curiosity into action.

Are you tough enough?

There is also real danger in over-selling the product. Drop-out rates in the public services - particularly in professions such as nursing and teaching - remain relatively high. If the reality of the job falls far short of that promised by the ad, it can only make matters worse.

But a feel good campaign that also manages to be realistic can boost morale and help new recruits feel they have made the right choice.

The Army's approach has been copied by other public service professions.

The Teacher Training Agency, which has the task of recruiting 30,000 new teachers annually, has tried a number of different approaches over the years.

Its latest campaign features headless people trapped in the daily grind. The pay-off is a science teacher in full possession of a cranium (albeit a bald one), entertaining a class of well-behaved teenagers. By being a teacher he is "using his head".

The heroine of a nursery school machete attack in the police ads

The Metropolitan Police attempts to combine celebrity endorsement with personal fulfilment, with its "I'm not sure I could do that" ads.

In these, the likes of Lennox Lewis and Patsy Palmer speak about how they would struggle to meet the challenges faced by the average copper.

All public services go in for some form of relationship marketing, but here again the Army has set the pace. Its camouflage loyalty programme now has more than 120,000 members aged between 13 and 17. The idea is to build and maintain contact with prospective recruits during their formative years.

The next step, according to Tequila, the agency appointed last year to develop the programme, is to form alliances with other youth-orientated brands.

The TA is also moving into motor racing sponsorship at Northamptonshire's Rockingham motor speedway, raising the slightly disconcerting prospect of a racing car in full military camouflage.

It is indeed a far cry from Lord Kitchener.

Compiled by Brian Wheeler

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