D&AD advertising tomfoolery

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D&AD Student Awards. Army Recruitment Brief.

We decided to do the Army recruitment brief as there is simply not enough killing and suffering in the world. What better way to hook the nations youngsters into the army than with a language they are familiar with, computer games. We didn't actually make the game itself, there was no need as there are plenty of computer games available already that glamourise war, as mentioned in a previous post - but instead we just made the advertising campaign in the graphic styling of a computer game. Screenshots on the back showed various stages of army life, and plenty of warnings of the graphic and violent content of army life were given.

This was a great project to do, though at times difficult to stomach when the horrors of war and injustices of army life were uncovered again and again, but in many ways these things just made it all the more important to complete the project and deliver something a little different from normal army recruitment campaigns. We just wanted to show some of the things that someone joining the army could experience - the things that they don't usually show potential recruits. This week saw the army in the news again for going into schools to recruit children, and reading some of the comments that the public had responded with, shows that this issue polarizes peoples opinion, I don't think I've seen such heated comments in reply to a news item before.
We were very satisfied with the results of our project, we believe we made an important point in way that still managed to fulfill the brief,- I would love to be a fly on the wall at the D&AD judging process, to see what the reaction is of the advertising agency that set the brief, though we have as much chance of wining as having the British Army withdraw from Iraq tomorrow morning. But as George Bush Jr might say, it's not the winning, it's the taking part that's counts.