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Start Thinking Soldier is the latest advertising campaign by the British Army. Launched on 6th April 2009, the campaign aims to encourage potential recruits to think about how they would tackle the type of challenges faced by soldiers. Developed over four different executions throughout the year, each showing a different mission from the first person perspective, the online campaign has already attracted 604,038 site visitors, 52,336 registrations and an average dwell time of 9-10 minutes. The stickiness of the site has meant the bounce rate is at a low of 1.6%.
Start Thinking Soldier demonstrates inter-agency collaboration. The British Army’s advertising agency, Publicis brought together its digital arm, Publicis Modem as well as digital specialist agency, Skive and production company, Spank in order to create what has been described as “a groundbreaking new initiative in terms of digital innovation and personal interaction and insight”.
Figaro Digital spoke with Publicis Modem, Skive and Spank in order to discover how the campaign all came together in this truly holistic campaign.
Publicis Modem has worked with the Army for nearly nine years and after reflecting on previous campaign work, Publicis decided it was time to expand upon previous British Army recruitment campaigns to create something different that was both engaging and innovative. Neal Hendey, Managing Director and Katie Smith, Senior Account Director, Publicis Modem, explain their involvement in the project.
Our brief was to increase recruitment amongst 17-21 year olds, especially among groups who might not ordinarily consider joining the army.
Given the target audience’s media consumption, it was clear that digital should be placed at the heart of the campaign. This gave us the opportunity to do something that no other recruitment campaign had done - to create the kind of experience our audience were used to in digital gaming, using technology to give potential recruits an idea of what it was actually like to be in The Army – Start Thinking Soldier was born.
The campaign was formed around four different missions, each one using ATL, BTL and Digital media. Each mission began on TV where our audience were given a problem and a choice of different solutions. Online, they were able to pick a solution which led into a deeper and richer interactive experience made up of mini challenges and training modules.
Drawing on the experience of working with the Army for such a long time, we were very aware we would be hitting our target audience at a time in their life when they were making many important choices about their future. We were able to tap into research which outlined self-discovery as a primary hook for 17-21 year olds and it seemed a natural progression to construct an experience placing the user in control of their self discovery, an experience which allowed them to also find out about the typical roles they would have access to in The Army and the kit they would be using. We also made sure we offered the possibility for human contact every step of the campaign - be that speaking to someone over the phone, finding their local recruiting office or attending a Start Thinking Soldier event.
We aligned the experience against the core skills required in The Army: decision making, leadership, teamwork and fitness. By capturing data the whole way through, The British Army had the opportunity to identify potential recruits with these attributes and to start a dialogue with them. It also gave us the opportunity to rollout a programme over a five month period in accordance with the four missions, each time giving the user something sticky to return to.
Increased bandwidth and internet usage allowed us to be pretty adventurous. We decided that the best way to get a truly immersive experience would be to use the techniques used in the gaming industry – however it was key that we never lost sight of a few important facts. Firstly, that this was an Army recruitment and awareness campaign, not a game. The second was to make the experience as real as possible – the idea was to educate and inform not simply to entertain.
We worked closely with Skive, spending weeks plotting the online challenges. Skive brought a whole range of new technologies, including the new Unity platform, a 3D engine that could work via streaming, as well as gaming knowledge and experience that helped shape the users journey. We used a seamless cinematic and animatic approach to realise a rich engaging yet wholly believable experience. Publicis Modem wrote scripts, these were refined, visual styles were collaborately chosen, technology and game play was laid out and finally we had the bare bones of each challenge.
We recognised our audience’s reluctance towards ‘tests’, and so we offered clear first person briefings, tips and encouragement as voice overs and subtitles to guide users through the missions. We provided the option for users to submit their scores to the leaderboard which could only be viewed by the closed registered community – keeping an air of exclusivity.
The final result of the site is one in which the user feels as though they have accomplished something, learnt something about themselves and a little bit about what it’s like to be in the Army. Publicis, Modem, Skive and Spank bought the best of their experience together to produce an immersive gaming recruitment experience.
Skive’s involvement in what became the ‘Start Thinking Soldier’ campaign began in October 2008, when the team, including Creative Director, Louis Clement, was asked to meet the creative team from Publicis Modem, Jon Groom and Asan Aslam.
It was Publicis Modem’s original idea to expand upon previous British Army recruitment campaigns which had simply driven prospective recruits online to watch more video content. This time around, they wanted to go further and provide a much larger and engaging user experience spanning four separate ‘missions’.
It became apparent from the start that this would be an exceptionally challenging undertaking. Content needed to spin off and expand upon four television ads, across different themes of Leadership, Decision Making, Teamwork and Stamina – which are the leading attributes that the Army look for in their recruits. It also needed to promote a variety of different job roles within the Army.
With pressing timelines and the need to confirm filming locations in Kenya – as well as a list of what ‘assets’ were requested in the form of Army hardware and kit, Skive acted quickly and put a team of eight people together with Modem to begin fleshing out content formats.
Creatively, we wanted to maintain the integrity of the ‘first person soldier’s perspective’ that was going to be used in the TV execution, which in itself provided a whole host of obstacles to overcome. It was also paramount to treat the online experience as a series of ‘challenges’ rather than ‘games’ so as not to belittle or demean real soldiering. At the same time, the target market is used to playing war games online and on consoles, and so content needed to compete for their attention – meaning the use of cutting edge technology was required.
Technological integration with peripherals such as Webcams or channels such as Mobile – and even 360 degree cameras with user interaction – were considered and ultimately rejected in favour of a more linear approach using 3D Flash and the Unity plug-in, mixed seamlessly with video and stills footage.
One glaring issue remained: a lack of knowledge of the Army. Working with the COI primarily through Major Charlie Mayo, meant we were given direct access to a host of different regiments and personnel who had firsthand experience of recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and were able to sense-check content at all stages – from storyline to script pre-production, to filming on location during production, and finally to the extensive voice over recorded back in the UK post-production.
It was with this invaluable collaboration with the COI that Skive was able to conceive of no less than 16 distinct pieces of content, spanning fire and manoeuvre, bomb disposal, Jackal driving and sniper fire to more tactical challenges such as mortar team placement and deploying units after a natural disaster.
With content approved, we worked with Modem to script ‘link’ sequences that would be filmed by Spank as part of the location shoot. These would also serve to bridge the gap between the main TV ads, the digital endings and the subsequent digital content. These scenes were storyboarded and fed into Spank’s production schedule.
With so much emphasis placed on the seamless transitions from film to Flash as well as maintaining a consistent photo-realistic look and feel, it was imperative that Skive attend the pre-production recce in January so that we could input into locations, feed shot requirements into Spank and define what would need to be recreated in CGI.
When we weren’t on set, myself and our Interactive Art Director, Jim Hall, were taking HDR stills for 3D lighting and reflection reference and plate shots to use as backdrops – as well as a host of textural reference stills for use in the Unity challenges. In total over thirty minutes of specially filmed digital footage will be used across the four ‘missions’ – all filmed by Spank and edited by Leo King for consistency.
Upon return to the UK the main content production began, involving a team of six Flash actionscripters and a Unity developer, three creatives, two designers, two project managers, and three back end developers working to integrate the project onto the servers and plugging it into the website built by Modem.
To meet the scale and ambition of the project, the technical development needed to react quickly to any changes required as well as scale comfortably with the addition of new missions and challenges. We adopted an agile workflow process based on iterative development and frequent inspection and adaptation. This allowed the large project team to feel involved in all aspects of the campaign, and enabled the project and account managers to keep informed about progress or potential delays on a daily basis. With only four weeks scheduled between live dates, it was obviously imperative that scope creep was dealt with instantly.
Each challenge was developed as a separate standalone 'module', which could be loaded and unloaded as and when required. This allowed us to create a sequencing mechanism, enabling the ability to instantly change the order of challenges, add in new features at any point of the mission, and allowing returning users to jump straight in where they left off.
With a large amount of audio, video and textured 3D content, creating a seamless loading experience was also a strong concern. This was another benefit of using a modular sequence for each challenge, as Skive was able to load each part of a mission separately, rather than having a huge loading time upfront. On top of this, a background loading system was created which could silently load any upcoming challenges or videos in the background while the user was playing a previous challenge.
While production was in full flow, a UK shoot was undertaken with COI producer Alan Traquair, which included some of the assets Skive were unable to get their hands on in Kenya – such as Lynx helicopters, Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) ‘wheelbarrows’ and Challenger 2 tanks.
Meanwhile voice over scripts were written and recorded so that the user was able to feel like they were truly playing the part of a new recruit receiving orders amongst his fellow soldiers, and spot effects and sound engineering were done using the sound company, 750MPH. Skive’s content needed to mirror the grade that Michael and post production facility MPC had put on the video footage, so all visuals were photoshopped and textured accordingly.
A large part of the campaign was about capturing data for future communication – with the Army needing to recruit 15,000 members a year. Therefore a registration mechanic was conceived in the form of ‘achievements’ awarded throughout the challenges. This would help reward those who invested more time in the content, as well as prompt users to ‘have another go’ to see how and where they missed out. However, users are only able to view their achievements at ‘Mission Debrief’ upon registering.
Another registration incentive came in the form of extra Training Missions – bonus content available from the MyBase area of the website to registered users. This included SA80, Long Range Rifle and General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) drills out on the firing range, looking through the scopes as you’re instructed on which targets to hit. It was in the training area that more conventional hi-score mechanic was utilised, promoting competition amongst users to be the best marksmen.
An extra requirement which Skive needed to factor in was for all content to work offline – which impacted the way in which it was built. The reason for this was so it could be demonstrated at the special events organised by Experiential Marketing agency, Jack Morton, which begin later in the year.
The extremely high quality of the online experience resulted in 10’ TV ad spots – which ensured the online experience sat at the hub of the campaign and illustrates the line between TV and online mediums continues to blur. TV assets be taken and utilised in the online space to great effect, but when the quality is high enough, vice versa is also possible.
Before anything could go live, it needed to undergo a third party usability testing procedure. The results from the testing were exceptional - the success of the concept and its content scored very highly and got exceptionally favourable responses from the target demographic.
In order to deliver the Start Thinking Soldier campaign it was imperative that the different agencies and stakeholders had a unified vision for the project – something that was much in evidence throughout production – and were on hand to share responsibility for areas that might not under normal circumstances be their remit. The end result is a truly collaborative integrated campaign.
Spank was asked to pitch to direct the new British Army campaign in October 2008. They had already shot two previous campaigns for the Army but the breadth of this project was altogether more ambitious. Not only was it for four 30” second television commercials, but it also included shooting the live action elements for four corresponding interactive web ‘challenges’, working in conjunction with digital specialist, Skive. Michael Geoghegan, Director at Spank recalls the ambitious project.
My take on the Publicis TV scripts, written by Steve Nicholls and Matt Anderson, was to shoot them from a soldier’s point of view; this would also translate well for the interactive part of the campaign, as it followed the visual convention of games such as ‘Call of Duty’. Once I had decided how to shoot the ads, there began a long and detailed process working out, creatively, how to make this idea work. Spank storyboarded each TVC and each ‘web challenge’, working out angles, set designs and the best way to make the dialogue work.
The British Army and the COI had decided that they were to film the campaign, code named ‘Operation Solomon’, in Kenya. This was for two main reasons, one being that there was an existing British Army base there and secondly, that it could be made to look like Afghanistan/Iraq. So in late November 2008 my team and I from Spank along with Kim Knowlton from the COI, headed out to scout Kenya to find suitable locations for the live action shoot. After much deliberation I chose two main areas: Magadi, a small industrial town near the Tanzania boarder; and Old Town Mombasa, for its closed in streets and architecture.
Both of these locations were creatively perfect for the job, however, logistically they both caused problems. Magadi was situated some three hours drive from Nairobi and had no accommodation. Along with our chosen Kenyan facility company, Ginger Inc, we created a tented city just outside the town overlooking the salt flats that could accommodate some one hundred and twenty cast and crew.
Within Old Town Mombasa, the main challenges were containing the unit and filming within the very narrow streets without upsetting the local residence and passing tourist trade. This was mainly done by hiring many locals as part of the location department, proving to be invaluable in making access very easy and creating a friendly and productive atmosphere on set.
Another production challenge was the lack of a filming infrastructure in Kenya. This meant having to bring in all the key crew – our Director of Photography came in from France, our visual FX team from South Africa and the Art Director, 1stAD, camera crew, sound recordist, video playback and editor from London.
So with everything in place, the crew including stills photographer Dario Mitidieri, Louis Clement and his team from Skive and a Platoon of British Soldiers hand picked by Victoria Hill at the COI, arrived in ‘Tent City’, Magadi to embark on a twelve day shoot staggered over a month.
The art department, led by my regular art director, Steve Smithwick, went ahead of the main crew, creating Afghanistan/Iraq in Kenya, which was a major task in its self.
Apart from Old Town Mombasa, Kenya offered very little ‘natural looking’ war torn Middle East environments. So during the scout, I had pinpointed areas that his art department could build on. Examples of this were building an oil field complete with Nodding Donkey on the salt flats, taking a local bar and turning it in to a highly fortified bomb factory and of course, preparing all the pyrotechnics and dressing that turned a basic blank canvas location in Africa into something that looks unquestioningly like a Middle Eastern war zone!
As we had agreed that I would shoot the films from a soldier’s point of view, I decided to take on camera operating duties as well as directing. Using a state of the art HD camera mounted to a helmet that I wore throughout the 12 day shoot, all of the camera’s hard disks and transmitters were mounted in an aluminum case that I wore on my back - weighing over nine kilos.
Our editor, Leo King from Cut & Run was also on the shoot, proving to be invaluable, not just for allowing us to get ahead with the editing (essential as Skive needed cuts as soon as possible to proceed with the game building in London), but also to help me visualise the films.
The overall outcome is a result of perfectly joined up workflow from start to finish. With the COI, Publicis, Modem, Spank and Skive all working seamlessly together to create one of the most in depth campaigns seen to date.
The first mission was launched 6th April 2009 followed by the launches of the second and third missions in May (18th) and June (22nd). The fourth installment, the fitness mission, will be launched on the 20th July.
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