U.S. Navy Launches its First YouTube Creator Campaign

The U.S Navy has created its first YouTube creator campaign in the hope of recruiting more tech-savvy employees. By tapping into digital video and YouTube creators, the Navy hopes to connect directly with potential recruits that may not have considered the Navy as a career option. The military wanted to find a way to be more engaging and relevant to the younger audience, so felt YouTube was the right platform on which to resonate its message across.The Sailor Vs. campaign sees sailors go head-to-head with three YouTube creators in order to highlight the range of roles available, from cybersecurity technicians to nuclear propulsion. As they are looking for over 50,000 sailors, special warfare operators, cryptologists and more next year, the U.S Navy wanted to ensure that young people know about the variety of different roles on offer.

The military worked with Wavemaker and VMLY&R, as well as Google’s BrandUnit Team to create the campaign, which launches today.Creators include DALLMYD, the face behind YouTube’s largest scuba diving and treasure hunting related channel, YouTube science and tech educator Vsauce2, and William Osman.“YouTube creators are experts at connecting with a specific audience, so we wanted to partner with those that have high engagement amongst teens interested in highly-technical skills, math and science. Then we collaborated to come up with content that provided an inside look at careers in the Navy in a way that would resonate with their audiences. It’s all about authenticity and context,” Ryan Blum, executive creative director at VMLY&R said.“We do a good job of reaching those that already show a desire to join, but it’s important to look in new places and present the Navy in a new context. Partnering with YouTube creators allows us to get away from the ‘shoot ‘em up’ military ads teens are used to seeing, and provide an authentic look into life as a sailor,” said Captain Matt Boren, chief marketing officer at the U.S. Navy.

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