TA readies major recruitment drive
The Territorial Army is preparing to launch its biggest ever marketing campaign to raise awareness of its work and encourage people to sign up in line with the government’s plan to boost reservist numbers.
The Ministry of Defence Future Reserves 2020 strategy was revealed by former defence secretary Liam Fox last year. It aims to “reshape” the British armed forces by reducing the number of fulltime service men and women while increasing the number of TA volunteers that work alongside them.
A teaser campaign launching this week includes a 30-second TV ad featuring a TA soldier on duty saying: “I’m surprised some of you have never heard of us, so we’re doing something to remind you”.
It also includes Facebook and Twitter activity featuring a countdown until “something big” happens in two weeks. The Facebook page states: “We are the territorial army. We’re about to push ourselves further than ever before. Watch this space”
The marketing activity will run under the “Do More Be More” strapline introduced in August.
In a briefing document for the recruitment drive, the Army states: “In recent years, cutbacks on new equipment, recruitment and training has left the TA in a somewhat stagnant situation … but following the recommendation of the FR20 Commission to raise the TA strength to 30,000 by 2020, it was clear that rapid action was needed to achieve that goal.”
It hopes to push the message that new TA recruits will be paid and have access to training and personal development opportunities as well as working alongside the full-time Army.
The Army specific campaign will run alongside a tri-forces recruitment campaign that launched in January under the strapline “Your spare time transformed” to raise general awareness of the Reserve Forces across Army, Navy and RAF.
The full campaign, due to launch in full on 7 March at 6pm, is being led by Publicis London.
