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The United States Army: Be All You Can Be

Amy Lavin, Sheri Lambert, Sean Madden

Product #:W48156
Supplier:Ivey/Temple
Discipline:General Management, Marketing
Setting:United States, 2023
Details:Case (PDF) • 12 pages • 2026-05-14

Subjects:

Sales and marketingLeadership and managing peopleMarketingManagementBrandingStrategyStrategy management

Industries:

Public administration and nonprofits

Geography:

United StatesNorth America
Your Price:$9.71

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In March 2023, Brigadier General Alex Fink and the United States Army Enterprise Marketing Office (AEMO) faced one of the toughest recruiting challenges in modern US history. Despite a US$335 million annual marketing budget, the Army had missed its 2022 recruitment target by 15,000 soldiers—the largest shortfall in decades. With shifting cultural attitudes toward work, identity, and service, traditional patriotic appeals no longer resonated with Generation Z. In response, AEMO relaunched the iconic “Be All You Can Be” campaign, attempting to bridge nostalgia and modern relevance. Fink and AEMO needed to decide whether to continue investing heavily in this nostalgic yet modernized campaign or explore new directions that might better resonate with evolving audiences.

Learning Objectives

This case can be used in marketing courses at the bachelor of business administration and master of business administration levels, in both in-person and online formats—particularly modules on brand strategy, public-sector marketing, or campaign management. The case is especially suited to courses that study message design, channel strategy, and cross-platform storytelling.

By working through the case and assignment questions, students will have the opportunity to do the following:
  • Evaluate brand equity in a public-sector context and analyze how institutional constraints shape marketing strategies.
  • Assess how large, mission-driven organizations evolve their brand positioning over time in response to social, political, and cultural pressures.
  • Identify strategic trade-offs in audience prioritization and recruitment messaging within a constrained policy environment.
  • Critically analyze campaign positioning, creative execution, and narrative framing.
  • Develop appropriate performance metrics and return-on-investment frameworks for non-commercial marketing objectives.
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Case Study: The United States Army: Be All You Can Be (English version) | Ivey Publishing