At the beginning of 2017, The Irish Defence Forces were in danger of dropping below their critical mass level of 9,500 staff. They urgently needed to boost their numbers and recruit 800 new members.

Our brief was to drive applications among 18 to 24 year olds and to tackle their reluctance to consider The Defence Forces as a career option - research told us that 73%* have never even considered it as a career.

There was just one more hurdle to jump - we had just 4 weeks to hit our numbers.

We needed to find a way to hijack their attention and pique their interest – and fast.

*source: Toluna survey among 200 Irish 18-24 year olds.

Timeline: 1 week teaser stage followed by 3 week campaign.

We created a 20” unbranded trailer for the game launch which received 500,000 views within the first five days on social media and was also played on screens in busy shopping centres around Ireland.

We turned the key visual into posters and game boxes (containing a DVD of the trailer). We took over window displays in gaming stores as well as getting the game boxes onto their shelves. The animated key visual ran on Orb Screens in over 70 locations. Brand Ambassadors hijacked GamerCon (24,000 attendees) and distributed the game boxes. Game boxes were also left on public transport nationwide and sent to radio hosts. We placed life size cardboard cutouts in stores and cinemas where the trailer was screened. We used programmatic social posts to retarget our audience. The campaign was also picked up by RTE News and influencers.