Back in November 10, 1775 our country needed an organization
that would propel them to a victory in the venture for freedom. That organization was born out of a necessity that the public wanted and understood importance of. Over the next 236 years this
organization has had to create an image that has had to change with the
changing landscape of the very country that it has defended. The Marine Corps is a non-profit organization
that has developed a brand that the public has not only recognized but has
accepted. This brand is synonymous with having member that are the Few and the Proud. The Marine Corps has evolved
in the way that it defends the country and it has also
evolved in the way that it has gets its message out to the
public. Over the years the Marine Corps
has had public crisis and has handled them the same way that
it has handled battles like the battle of Tripoli and the
battle of Belleau Wood, with a tactical strike resulting in success. There are many organizations out there
like the Marine Corps, but the Public Relations strategies that the Marine Corps
uses are extremely successful.
I
began Recruiting for the United States Marine Corps about two years ago. In that time I have come to understand the
United States Marine Corps is one of the best organizations at branding itself
to the public. I was trained as a recruiter to understand my role and responsibility as the Public Relations Professional
for the Marine Corps. In public
relations you have a few techniques and tactics that Public Relation
Professionals use to brand it's product. Some examples are coverage in a newspaper, being featured on radio stops
as guest speaker, or the making an appearance in special community events (Cameron,
pg. 5). Many Marine Corps Recruiters
and I have had the opportunity to utilize this very techniques and tactics in our
everyday dealings with the public. One technique that we use frequently is
the utilization of the newspaper to announce how the Marine Corps has changed the life
of one of the young men or women that grew up in their community. When a young man or women from the community does something of importance in the Marine Corps, we as recruiters would take the information to the local newspaper and have the information printed. This not only show cases that they individual's accomplishment, but is shows the community that we have taken their raw material and turned it into an success story. This allow the community and the Marine Corps build a bond around the connect that they share that young man or woman.
While
recruiting for the Marine Corps I had the chance to get to know the community that I served. In
doing so I have come to an understand of community as a whole and what drives
the needs of the community. In this understanding I have be
able to relate to the community and give them information on how the Marine
Corps can benefit them not only individually, but
also as a community. I can recall a particular
instance when I had a young man that I was working with. He was very well known in his community
because if his accolades in High School Athletics. Although he was well known the community this young man had a living situation that placed
him out in the streets. Once he graduated
from high school his uncle would no longer allow him to live with him. This young man went from friend to friend sleeping on their floors. Well this young man also wanted to be a
Marine more than anything in the world, but because of his weight he could not
join right away. As his recruiter I had to put in over time to work with him to lose over thirty
pounds, and be in shape enough to ship out to boot camp. Although I had to work twenty hour days while working with him, I was able to help him reach his goals. When he graduated from
boot camp I took this young man’s story to our public relations office to have
them relay his story over the free airway spots that the local
radio stations gave to us. This was just one
story among numerous others that were told all throughout the month of November. This gave the public an understanding of how
the Marine Corps as an organization did more than defend the rights of Americans, but we also are making changes in the lives of the young men and
women of their own community. Not only was I able to create a new Marine who will care on the ethos that I instead in him with my actions, but I was also able to change the life of a young man that need help out of his situation.
The Marine Corps changes the lives of the individuals in the country that it serves. This is the
message that the Marine Corps has me deliver every day through my actions. We ensure that this message is extended to every reach of the country by calling young American, walking up to them in the street and talking to them, and by making appearances at local high schools. When invited we attend their awards ceremonies, sporting events, Toys for Tots event,
and just about any event that takes place in the communities that we serve. These
methods and techniques that we use may be affective and has a broad reach to
many in the communities that we serve, but in this day and age if we want to get maximum exposure we have to use other avenues that are more up to date with today’s young Americans.
When
I first got to the unit that I recruited out of one of the first things that my
command had me do was to create a Facebook page to connect to the young men and
women that were in my community. This
method gave way to a whole new way to relate to my target audience. With the addition of Facebook I was able to
inform the community of all the events that I would be attending. I also used this forum as a Q and A to give the community answer of what a Marine is. There
are 651,835,100 active users on Facebook, with 150,055,580 United States users
(How Many Are There 2011). With this many people utilizing Facebook I was able
to relay to my communities and surrounding communities what the Marine Corps could offer them in the way of opportunities in a way that they may have never thought of.
My command was experimenting with the PR benefits of utilizing
Facebook. Our commanding officer told us
that the first Marine that contacted an interested party would
receive a day off. I than built a
Facebook page for my area and then went out and contacted the young men and
women in my area and then went down my contact list and sent messages to all
the young men and women that attended the schools in my Area. The Message Read:
Good
Day,
My Rank and Name is Staff Sergeant
Stubblefield I am the Marine Corps Representative for your School. The Marine
Corps is an organization that has been around for over 236 years, and has created
professional of every level even as high as CEO of Fortune Five Hundred
Companies. If you would like to learn more I can be contacted at…I then left
them my office number, cell phone number, I gave them the address to my office,
and my email address. This method is one
that I liken to a news release to inform the community that I worked in that I
was here and this is what I was about.
This method was not the only method at our disposal. The Marine Corps uses the Television to get
its message across to the public.
This resulted in me contacting three young men and women within that hour. One of which was located in Germany at the time. Of the three the young man from Germany ended up joining the Marine Corps a few months later. This technique of using Facebook was successful. The ability to be what the Marine Corps call "Semper Gumby" (meaning always be flexible) allow the Marine Corps to conform to the ever changing landscape of communication.
This resulted in me contacting three young men and women within that hour. One of which was located in Germany at the time. Of the three the young man from Germany ended up joining the Marine Corps a few months later. This technique of using Facebook was successful. The ability to be what the Marine Corps call "Semper Gumby" (meaning always be flexible) allow the Marine Corps to conform to the ever changing landscape of communication.
The
Marine Corps has utilized an Advertising Company that has done research on
what it is that the youth of America find important. They discovered that the target audience
wants to give back. They are doing this
through increased volunteering in such ventures like the Peace Corps and
volunteering in third world countries give their time. The Marine Corps took that and focused its
advertisement effort to attract those very individuals. The new Marine Corps commercials open the
caption Towards Chaos, and then the scene opens with Marines running and flying,
riding boats and tanks towards a dust storm and a voice in the back ground is
stating that there are few that move towards the sound of chaos ready to
respond at a moment’s notice and that when there is chaos the Marines are the
first one to bring order to that chaos, and closes with the moniker of the Few
The Proud The Marines. In the commercial
it gives little subliminal messages. In
the Air Craft you can see packages that are distributed to countries when we
are giving aides to other countries showing the humanitarian side of the Marine
Corps. At the same time it still shows Marines in the war fighter
element, illustrating how the Marine Corps is still this countries War Fighter. All while showing the young men and women how
they can make a difference in the other’s lives. This is one in a series of new Marine Corps commercials that are geared toward painting the image of the Marine Corps as the
organization that will give its member the opportunity to make a change in
other’s lives. The complete series has
been made available on another great social Media Site Youtube (Marine Corps
Commercials 2012). With the emersion of
social Media Sites like Facebook and Youtube the Marine Corps can paint the
Public Picture of the Marine Corps in a great light, but what would the Marine
Corps do in the face of a crisis.
In
December 8, 2008 in San Diego CA a United State Marine Corps F/A 18 Hornet
crashed into residential housing. The
crash destroyed two residential homes and damaging a third. It resulted in the loss of four lives, two
women and two children. Although
investigations concluded that the crash was a result of poor maintenance
causing an engine malfunction, the Marine Corps temporarily grounded the pilot
and relieved and or disciplined thirteen other officers and enlisted
personnel. It was determined that error
on their part played a role in the crash.
The Marine Corps then informed all of its F/A-18 squadrons of the engine
and fuel problems discover during the investigation (Wikipedia 2008).
Now
with this crisis the Marine Corps had to take actions to ensure that the public
opinions of the situation did not get out of hand. As an Organization the Marine Corps had to
attack this in phases. The first was to
monitor media for the emerging issue.
The incident had been on the News, on all the major web news sites, and
newspapers. By the time that Marines made
it home that day there wasn’t a major news station in the Ca. area that did not
have a computer simulation of the incident.
So
the next logical step for the Marine Corps was to take preventive actions that
forestall conflict. One thing about the
Marine Corps is that this step of managing conflict is built into it DNA. One term that every Marine in the Corps knows
is the Safety Stand Down. This is a
term that the Marine Corps uses to let the Marines know that something has
occurred and that the Marine Corps wants to ensure that no future similar
incidents occur, so they hold a safety stand down. In this case the Marine Corps grounded all of
its aircrafts and had all the Marines that work on or flight aircraft to come
together and communicate what has occurred.
They were given guidance on what to say to the Media and how to say it
to the Media.
This
is how the Marine Corps Deals with this crisis. During this safety stand down
the Marines that flight and maintain the aircraft sit through classes that
reinforce the importance of safety and how each and every one has an impact on
preventing this type of incident from occurring again. Once all the Marines throughout the
organization knows how to address the media and what to say if cornered. The Marine Corps then begins to repair the
relations with the public by utilizing its public relations officers to make
statements to the news stations, news publications, news websites, and
releasing statement on its own websites.
The Marine Corps was honest with the public and let them know that the
due to the errors on the part of the Marines that this incident has occurred,
and they then went a step future to inform the public of what step it has taken
to ensure that this problem has been mitigated, through investigations, on the
job training, disciplinary actions, and relief of personnel who made the
grievance error. The community seemed to
then take to these action and the Marine Corps fell back in the good graces of
the community. Even a widower of the
incident spoke out on the made a statement of the how he did not blame the F-18
pilot for the crash (Fox News.com 2008).
All things said the Marine Corps handled the issue well. The Marine Corps as an Organization will have
issues that not every Non-profit organization will have due to the nature of
what the Marine Corps does. Now if you were
to take a for-profit organization and place it in the same boat as the Marine
Corps I think that they would have to change up its PR tactics to each the
success that the Marine Corps has had over the years.
Although
organizations longevity does not dictate its success, but when you have an
organization that has existed longer then the people and country that it serves
it is hard to argue with the fact that this organization is successful. With that being said I guess you can say the
same about an organization that has been around as almost half as long as the
country and people that it serves. That
company that I am referring to is the Coca-Cola Company. From the humble beginnings in a soda fountain
in downtown Georgia, this company has exploded into a multi-billion dollar
company that produces enough of its product to have 19,400 of its beverages to
be consumed every second. This
successful company has utilized PR techniques and tactics that has made it
product one of the most recognizable products in the world. Some of the most notable methods are product
placement.
Coca-Cola
has developed a bottle shape that has become undeniable when seen, and because
of its unique shape Coke has been able to stick out, and this was evident when
using this shape in its product placement in films as old as the 1933 film
“King Kong” and the 1975 Film “Jaws”.
This method has continued even to this day in films like then 2004 film
“Million Dollar Baby” and the 2010 film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (Warren
2012). This tactic is a very subtle
approach to get its product out their using this technique has the public
relate some of its fondest memories with its product. A very good technique, although the Marine
Corps uses this technique I believe that it uses it to create a lighter view of
its organization, by having product placements in comedies like “Major Payne”
and TV comedies like “Major Dad” . These
product placements are used to create a lighter side of the Marine Corps to
soften its hard image. As for Coke it is
just in the background letting its patrons know that if you want to have a good
time then you will want to have a Coke while doing it. This tactic is a good one. Will fans of Will Ferrell think of him
drinking a whole two liter of Coke and belching out extremely loud, think to
themselves “Now that look fun” and now relate having fun to having a Coke
product. Or will fans of Damon Wayans see him in some Marine Corps utilities
and making fun a young chunky little boy as he did sit-ups say to themselves
“Now that’s Funny” and relate Funny with Marine Corps. In both instances I
think that the public image of these organizations have been favorable. With that I think that both these Non and
For-profit organizations have been successful in their tactics and approaches
to Public Relations. Now picking the
right tactic does not make a successful organization, it take a bit more.
Conclusion
The organization has to know what it is
that public wants. Through research they
have to develop a brand that the public can relate to, a brand like the Marines
Few, and Proud Brand. The organization
has to utilizing this brand to get the public to understand that the organization
is here from them, and that it will give them what the need. The organization
is one that will evolve with them. As
times change the organization will change with the times. The organization will be accessible the same
way that everything else is accessible with the evolution of our media and
other venues in this 21st century.
The organization may have some shortcomings, but is honest and upfront
with those shortcomings. Not only are
they honest and up front, but will inform the public of what they will do to
correct those short comings. No matter if the organization is a for-profit or a
non-for-profit it knows how to utilize the tactics and techniques that have
made other organizations viewed as an asset to the community. The Marine Corps embodies all this and this
is why this paper is not Just Another Marine Corps Paper.
References
2008 San Diego F/A-18 crash (2008). Wikipedia Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_San_Diego_F/A-18_crash
Cameron, G. T., Wilcox, D. L., Reber,
B. H., & Shin, J. (2008). Public relations today: Managing competition and
conflict. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Howmanyarethere. (2011). Facebook. Retrieved from http://howmanyarethere.net/how-many-facebook-users-are-there/
Marine Corps Commercial: Towards the Sounds of Chaos (2012).
Youtube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYrBSTBHCS4
Warren, Christina (2012). Coca-Cola and the Movies
[Infographic] Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/05/12/coca-cola-movies/
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