Under a Rising Sun, the new national integrated campaign from Defence Force Recruiting.

By Justin Arthur at June 21, 2010 | 12:25 pmPrint

This month we launched Defence Force Recruiting’s newest Army campaign. Under a Rising Sun is a fully integrated campaign designed to help Australian’s better identify with the modern soldier.

In planning, we identified that no matter how much information you give someone wanting to join the military, there’s an intangible element that makes them decide to commit. There’s an emotional attachment, or often a desire to contribute. This element of the decision process was what drove us to develop the campaign.

We wanted to show Australians the real modern soldier. How they feel about their career, what makes them happy, what paths have they traveled. We wanted to illustrate that people in the Army are just like you and me, except that their job takes them to places, and gives them experiences you’ll never find anywhere else.

From Townsville to Ballarat, we searched Australia-wide for five soldiers and officers to sit and listen to their stories, which became the central element of the campaign. Each personality chosen was given their own design style, and their piece of the website was filled with real photos, memorabilia and stories from their lives. There was an emphasis on honesty, where the truth of a person’s story would outweigh a negative comment – be that a mother discussing her reservations on watching her son go to Afghanistan, or being bitten by a snake on a training exercise.

These chosen five also work to break some of the stereotypes traditionally faced by the Army. The cast are a mix of males and females, officers and soldiers from a variety of backgrounds.

The personal approach was executed through the media strategy. Each personality was used to target a specific demographic through all channels nationally in TV, OOH, print, display, search & social media. The ultimate outcome, to ensure the target audience had the best chance of identifying with the relevant personality.

The response from the first two weeks has been amazing, we hope Under a Rising Sun assists someone in finding the right career in the Army and ultimately change perception of working for the Army and encourage more Australians who have never considered the Army to find out more.

www.defencejobs.gov.au/RisingSun

A huge thanks to all on the project:
Dode – creative lead
Amanda – design
Evan – design
Erik – actionscript
Thomas – actionscript
Hobbers – motion graphics
Slatts – motion graphics
Beau – motion graphics
Andrew – html
James – html
Rob – dev
Caroline – strategy
Kate – tracking
Dom – video editing
Kitty – video editing
Sammi – video production
Budge – video production
Greeny – video production
Jono – video production
Crispy – print production
Oli – print production
Knackers – banner production
Rajani – testing
Vince – testing
And thanks to all those who lent support along the way. It was fun.

Creative Visual Jazz