Navy to Release New TV Ad Campaign

A new Navy recruiting commercial highlights the service’s global footprint with sailors operating ships, fighter-jets and undersea technologies – all as part of the Navy’s new recruiting push to appeal to young potential sailors.

The new commercial, which will debut Friday night on ESPN’s X-Games, called “Pin Map,” depicts Navy sailors performing a range of tasks to include detecting IEDs with ground robots, climbing snow-covered mountains with rifles, operating rigid-inflatable boats at sea, and flying carrier-launched aircraft in formation.

Each “pin” is intended to signify a strategically important part of the globe where Navy forces operate. Part of the rationale is to emphasize warfighting and sailors, pointing to the range of functions they perform in crucial areas around the world.

A key strategy with this new ad is to depart completely from the much-known and often criticized “NAVY: A Global Force for Good” ad campaign.

“Pin Map highlights Navy's unique ability to operate around the world -- on, above and below the sea. I think most folks will immediately take notice that Pin Map and its sister commercial The Shield, released in December, are a pretty big departure from the themes and images of our early Global Force for Good commercials,” said Cmdr. Chris Servello, spokesman for the Navy Chief of Personnel.

A national poll found that only 20-percent of Americans support the message of America’s Navy as a “global force for good,” according to a Navy Times report in February of 2013.

According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released in 2013, 70-percent of 1,000 survey respondents said the Navy’s responsibility was to defend the nation, not necessarily to perform “good” deeds, the article said.

As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that the new ad campaign emphasizes sailors and warfighting techniques and technologies without mentioning being a force for “good.”

A 30-second version of the “Pin Map” ad campaign will debut Friday evening at 10:30 EST on ESPN during coverage of the Winter X Games, Servello said.

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— Kris Osborn can be reached at Kris.Osborn@military.com