Humanitarian Aid

Demonstration of this advert can be found here.

This is a very impressive advert. As you can see from the demonstration link above, the plane flies in over the page content and drops aid bags on the website and then in the centre of this the main advert appears. The entire sequence doesn't take long, it looks very pretty and certainly grabs your attention while at the same time offering you little information other than a single line of text and a link to find out more. This appears to be a favourite with the military at the moment, inviting you to find out more and giving you very little to go on in terms of initial information. I have no intention of ever joining the army or even entering conflict but some of these arm recruitment banners have taken me, quite willingly, to the recruitment site just to find out about the rest of the advert.

In particular I think it's worth noting the British Army's current advertisement campaign which presents you with footage from what appears to a real recording. The video will always start off with a simple recruitment appeal of sorts (even if it's just someone explaining the good work they do) but then take the video very suddenly to a crisis which doesn't quite resolve itself before the advert ends. In order to find out what happens you have to follow the link and find the ending, very effective form of advertisement.

Also worth mentioning is the U.S. Military and their recruitment through free online games. It's this form of advertisement that seems to most win over the viewers interest. U.S. official claim the game "America's Army" which was created with the intention of boosting recruitment has increased the recruitment of young adults by up to 17% since it was first released. Statistics indicate that 28% of all persons visiting the America's Army website with the intention to play a first person shooter actually visit the U.S. military recruitment website via simple and small advert banners nestled within the games website.

America's Army

It may even take you a few careful looks to find these adverts, but it just goes to prove a well placed advert no matter how small and unobtrusive can be a powerful tool.