Case Study: U.S. Navy boosts recruiting engagement with VMLY&R's authentic social campaign

U.S. Navy boosts leads 80% with VMLY&R

The U.S. Navy was facing its hardest recruiting year in decades, struggling to connect with GenZ due to perceptions of its content as over-produced and fictionalized. The vendor VMLY&R was engaged to address this challenge and shift these perceptions to help meet recruitment goals.

VMLY&R created the "Inside the Navy" social campaign, which used raw, first-person point-of-view videos from real Sailors to provide an honest and transparent look at Navy life. This solution successfully integrated into GenZ's social feeds, resulting in an 80% year-over-year increase in leads, a 14.6% lift in the perception that the Navy "is a place for someone like me," and significant increases in social engagement and web traffic.

U.S. Navy