The Army is blaming a celebrity for a recruiting advertising failure after they paid millions to post to his Instagram.
The U.S. Army struck an $11 million advertising deal with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and his United Football League in hopes of attracting recruits.
But a new report shows it backfired and ended up putting their recruiting numbers into the negatives.
As per the agreement, Johnson was supposed to post five Army ads on his Instagram -which has 396 million followers- but only posted two.
The UFL, which Johnson is the co-owner, was also required to show military ads during games and place Army logos on players’ uniforms during its first season this year.
The Army hoped to attract thousands of recruits but the UFL’s debut was lackluster and ended up costing the Army 38 enlistments, according to documents reviewed by military.com.
“In terms of The Rock, it’s unfortunate he was pulled away at a time when we expected him to be present with us to create content for his social media channels,” Col. Dave Butler, a spokesperson for Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, told Military.com.
Despite the alleged breach of contract, Butler said that Johnson “remains a good partner for the Army” and they are working with the UFL to “rebalance” the contract.
This isn’t the first time the Army has failed to attract recruits through sports sponsorships.
In 2012, the National Guard spent $26.5 million to sponsor NASCAR racing but failed to sign up a single recruit.
From, 2011 to 2013 they spent a total of $88 million as a NASCAR sponsor.
Read More: Army says it will meet its recruiting goal by giving poor-performing recruits a second chance
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