So where does the military start looking when conscription and the general draft no longer delivers results? When the youth of today are no longer interested in being GI Joe, what can be done? And (last question I promise) what medium has the widest reach at the lowest cost and targets the youth in a way that no other medium has ever done? YES, you guessed it!!! – Online or the internet or the World Wide Web is correct for all 3 questions!
Actually, military recruitment has now become serious business online, with more and more countries competing for the attention of their respective recruits via media channels that appeal to them.
And using and marketing the military online is not such a new tactic either. The US Army already caused quite a stir over a year ago when they elected to sponsor a channel at the Global Gaming League website. Gamers could play for free as long as they agreed to accept “additional contract information” from the Army. The Army invested two million dollars into this form of recruitment, in an effort at finding potential soldiers among regular gamers in the sought-after recruiting age range of 17 to 24.
How successful the campaign was is a bit hard to tell, as the army does not release their CPA rates for recruitment 
But looking at the fact that numerous other countries have launched their own websites supported by active online campaigns, it is safe to say that online recruitment is something that is getting taken very seriously! And has become a serious market for web development and online marketing companies to start playing in.
One of the latest Army sites to appear on the web is from The Netherlands, where the Luchtmacht has launched a brilliantly done web presence to showcase its military world to the young Dutch. Check out the Luchtmacht site and you will see that no cost has been spared in creating this military masterpiece…
Not that I totally agree with the practice of recruiting young adults online and glamourising war, but I must admit that it is interesting to see the military use a medium that has spent a long time building credibility over other media channels… Defintely something to sit up and take notice of, and defintely keep our eyes on too…
