Recruiting an all-volunteer military is a formidable task. To successfully enlist one eligible recruit, the Army must contact approximately 120 young people. The National Research Council explores the various factors that will determine whether the military can realistically expect to recruit an adequate fighting force-one that will meet its upcoming needs. It also assesses the military's expected manpower needs and projects the numbers of youth who are likely to be available over the next 20 years to meet these needs. With clearly written text and useful graphics, Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth offers an overview of important issues for military recruiters, touching on a number of important topics including: sex and race, education and aptitude, physical and moral attributes, and military life and working conditions. In addition, the book looks at how a potential recruit would approach the decision to enlist, considering personal, family, and social values, and the options for other employment or college. Building on the need to increase young Americans' "propensity to enlist," this book offers useful recommendations for increasing educational opportunities while in the service and for developing advertising strategies that include concepts of patriotism and duty to country. Of primary value to military policymakers, recruitment officers, and analysts, Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth will also interest social scientists and policy makers interested in youth trends.

The Defense Department has been spending over $100 million annually on recruiting advertising. Previous econometric studies of military advertising's effects have relied on data from time periods unlike today's and have used models possibly inappropriate for supporting today's decisionmakers. This report details improved methods developed to assess military advertising's effectiveness and illustrates them using early 1980s and mid-1990s data.

Advertising for Military Recruiting: How Effective Is It?

This report documents research findings from a RAND project titled "The Relative Cost Effectiveness of Military Advertising," the goal of which was to develop and apply a methodology for assessing the cost effectiveness of the services' advertising programs and to provide guidance for a more efficient allocation of resources in the future. The project was sponsored by the Director for Accession Policy (Force Management Policy). This report examines issues related to the effectiveness of recruiting advertising during the 1980s and 1990s. It describes the policy context, summarizes the current state of knowledge, and identifies several conceptual and methodological issues. In addition, it describes a framework developed for estimating advertising effects and how that framework was applied in an analysis of 198Os Army advertising programs. It also discusses how this methodology was used to analyze 1993-1997 DoD-wide information. The empirical results from the study strongly support the view that advertising has been a cost effective recruiting tool and provide some guidance for future improvements. Data deficiencies and analytic challenges associated with recruiting environment complexity, however, made it impossible to determine the most effective mix of advertising. Nonetheless, the concepts and methods developed can help guide future advertising research, and the general policy conclusions regarding past advertising programs remain valid. Additional research is necessary if future allocations of recruiting resources, including advertising dollars, are to be made optimally.

This report documents research findings from a RAND project titled "The Relative Cost Effectiveness of Military Advertising," the goal of which was to develop and apply a methodology for assessing the cost effectiveness of the services' advertising programs and to provide guidance for a more efficient allocation of resources in the future. The project was sponsored by the Director for Accession Policy (Force Management Policy). This report examines issues related to the effectiveness of recruiting advertising during the 1980s and 1990s. It describes the policy context, summarizes the current state of knowledge, and identifies several conceptual and methodological issues. In addition, it describes a framework developed for estimating advertising effects and how that framework was applied in an analysis of 198Os Army advertising programs. It also discusses how this methodology was used to analyze 1993-1997 DoD-wide information. The empirical results from the study strongly support the view that advertising has been a cost effective recruiting tool and provide some guidance for future improvements. Data deficiencies and analytic challenges associated with recruiting environment complexity, however, made it impossible to determine the most effective mix of advertising. Nonetheless, the concepts and methods developed can help guide future advertising research, and the general policy conclusions regarding past advertising programs remain valid. Additional research is necessary if future allocations of recruiting resources, including advertising dollars, are to be made optimally.