USMC Ad

[admin]

Marines have always been a great recruitment machine. Watch this ad and see
why.

http://our.marines. com/cms_content/ showblogvideo/ rel_id/169/ id/870

It begins on the Atlantic Cost and ends on the Pacific. In between, Marines
are shot doing rifle drill at various natural and man-made landmarks. This
is the ad that San Francisco supervisors tried to keep from being shot
partly in their burg because it would offend the buggerers or buggerees or
some other key constituency. The Marines got the Golden Gate shot instead...
San Franciscans, fuck 'em (Er, maybe, DON'T fuck 'em).

It's fun to see how many locations you can ID in the ad.

One of the reasons the ad is good is that there's very little concentration
on the faces of the Marines in the ad. This lets the kid watching imagine
himself in one of those uniforms. The narrator also stirs desire to belong:
"They have _always_ defended this nation... and each other." And "...a
committment to something greater than themselves." Young men and teenage
boys desperately want to belong to something, and they will find a way to do
it whether it's the Marines or MS-13.

As a nation we have a strong interest in what sort of gang those boys join.

In 2001/2002 the Army had an ad this good. It was set to the Johnny Cash
version of Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down" and used historical footage and
stills -- a very large number of them from SF -- to tell a story of
achievement and sacrifice without words. It may not have brought in as many
warm bodies as the used-car dealer style ads that pimp benefits, but it
brought in -- I think -- the right bodies.

In time, they took it off the air but it continued to play on AFN for a long
time -- the troops loved it. And it sure beat their usual "Here's how to get
counseling if you want to stop beating your wife" PSAs. I don't see many
ads, as I don't have a TV, so I don't know how they're selling the Army now.
From time to time they've used SF as a recruiting draw, the way Chevy
dealers use a red Corvette in the showroom. Sometimes they're reluctant to
let the Vette go to a customer because it helps them sell so many vans and
trucks.

I am glad I wound up where I wound up in the service, and not in the
Marines... but I'm glad we have Marines.