ADF targets popular games like FIFA to recruit young Australians
If you’ve ever watched content creators play video games live on the Twitch platform, you may have been the target of an Australian Defense Force ad.
At yesterday’s Senate estimates hearing, ADF chief of staff Natasha Fox clarified specific games the military focuses on when trying to find young recruits: football games FIFA And Rocket Leaguemultiplayer battle arena game league of legendsand pirate game Sea of Thieves. Creators film themselves playing these games, and game fans watch them later as videos. Ads ADF uses during these videos.
Fox also said the ADF was running a campaign on TikTok, but stressed that the force did not have an account on the social media platform.
“TikTok is not connected to any of our systems, but we ran a campaign on TikTok and pointed out that the demographic majority of Australians in terms of young people are operating here,” he said.
Another way ADF is seeking out young people is by collaborating with digital publisher LADbible.
“We are also working with LADbible as they are a popular digital publisher providing engaging content to a younger audience and also seeing our reach increase to the population to advertise defense careers,” he said.
The army’s target audience consists of two demographic groups: 16-24 year olds and 24-35 year olds.
“We [also] There were some advertisements on 3D billboards in Melbourne and Sydney, [and] “We have a mobile ADF careers centre, which is a bus that goes to remote areas and also promotes and discusses ADF careers,” he said. “We also have a pop-up ADF careers centre, based in two locations: Coffs Harbor and Geelong, where we have seen an increase in applications.”
He added that the pop-up headquarters is currently in Ballarat and will remain there for three months.
The government recently announced that the ADF has increased its permanent and full-time staff to over 61,000; This means an increase of approximately 1,900 people. This is the highest figure in the last 15 years and reflects a 17% increase in the number of people joining the ADF. ABC News It was reported in August.
Defense Personnel Secretary Matt Keogh said “smarter” careers advertising, including computer games and TikTok, was behind the increase.
“We’re making sure we focus on delivering ads where our target age groups are, so they can see those messages and see the breadth of role types available across the Australian Defense Force,” he told the ABC.
Targeting the video game community isn’t a new strategy, and Australian recruiters aren’t the only ones using it. In the US, the armed forces have long targeted actors for recruitment. A navy recruiting spokesman said: Guard Last year, 3 to 5% of the navy’s annual marketing budget went to e-sports initiatives.
