Peace Corps: Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go? campaign

OVERVIEW

The Peace Corps was signed into existence by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as a federal organization designed to improve education, community development, health care, and environmental services in undeveloped countries. The organization received a steady flow of recruits throughout the 1960s and '70s, but by 2002 the number of new Peace Corps volunteers was dwindling. According to the ad agency BBDO Atlanta, the Peace Corps' image had grown outdated. Also, it had become increasingly difficult to convince recent college graduates, who were eager to begin their careers, to volunteer for a 27-month, low-paid Peace Corps commitment. To increase by 20 percent the number of applications it received over a one-year period, the Peace Corps released its "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" campaign.

The campaign began on September 25, 2003, after the business-development firm Threespot Media released a new Peace Corps website that included online applications and a plethora of information about the Peace Corps. Soon afterward BBDO released television spots with the tagline "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" Some commercials featured an English voice-over from the American actor Matthew McConaughey; others used a Spanish voice-over by the Latino actor Eduardo Verástegui. Print, billboard, and radio advertising ensued. Before the campaign's release, BBDO updated the Peace Corps' target demographic, which had previously consisted of recent college graduates. The new campaign targeted personality types that BBDO dubbed "Unfulfilled Idealists," abstract-thinking optimists who believed life was to be lived as a constant search for fulfillment.

In 2005 the campaign won a Gold EFFIE Award in the Recruitment Advertising category. It also helped catapult the rate of submitted Peace Corps applications by 20 percent in just nine months. The Peace Corps' website traffic increased by 73 percent over the previous year, and total website, E-mail, phone, and mail inquiries increased 47 percent. By 2004 the total number of Peace Corps volunteers had reached 7,733, more than the agency had reported in 29 years. Before the "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" campaign, much of the Peace Corps' advertising used facts to attract volunteers. In 2000 the Peace Corps released advertising under the tagline "How far are you willing to go to make a difference?" Copy from a print ad stated, "No 401k, no profit sharing, no stock options, yet you won't find a better place—better benefits anywhere: the Peace Corps." The ads targeted all college-educated adults.

Despite the Peace Corps' attempts to empower college-educated Americans to volunteer for the 27-month commitment, Peace Corps application submissions were in decline. Peace Corps director Gaddi Vasquez explained his organization's antiquated image to the Orange County Register. "We have found anecdotally and through our research that people have high regard for the Peace Corps," Vasquez said, "but in many instances they talk about it in the past tense. A lot of people think it ceased to exist some years ago because it's kept such a low profile." In 2003 the Peace Corps hoped to rebrand itself as a viable organization and to increase its application submissions by 20 percent. President George W. Bush had also encouraged the Peace Corps to double its volunteers between 2004 and 2008.

TARGET MARKET

Instead of targeting a demographic of college-educated young adults, as the Peace Corps had been doing for more than 40 years, "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" targeted a personality type. It consisted of what ad agency BBDO referred to as "Unfulfilled Idealists," or optimists with an expansive worldview and a belief that life was a constant search for fulfillment. BBDO redefined the Peace Corps' target audience after the agency's own research revealed that "Unfulfilled Idealists" composed more than 80 percent of Peace Corps volunteers. By targeting a personality type, the campaign's scope could expand past the education limitations placed on the previous target.

In 2003 Vasquez also pledged to diversify the Peace Corps by targeting older Americans, couples, community-college students, and more ethnic minorities than the agency had reached in the past. "We are definitely emphasizing greater diversity from retirees to ethnic [groups]," Vasquez told the Washington Times. "We want the volunteers to represent a cross section of America." Later in the article Vasquez stated, "We want to break the stereotype that [the] only people who serve in the Peace Corps are younger." The campaign also fostered partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (an association of American colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education). Spanish voice-overs for some television spots were provided by the Latino actor Eduardo Verástegui. To reach older "Unfulfilled Idealists," the Peace Corps also partnered with the Retired Teachers Association and the American Association of Retired Persons. Although a minimum age of 18 was required to join the Peace Corps, the organization did not post an age maximum. The Peace Corps had historically recruited individuals as old as 85 years of age.

COMPETITION

After the invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003, the United States Army spent the majority of its $200 million advertising budget on its "Army of One" campaign, developed by the ad agency Leo Burnett. In order to attract new enlistees the campaign touted the Army's range of combat technology. Television spots resembled video-game advertisements and attempted to lure new recruits by showing off the Army's war gadgetry. When the campaign yielded few results and the Army needed to quickly increase its active duty population from 482,400 to 512,400, a series of reality-based television spots were released under the new tagline "2400/7." The updated commercials featured the real-life situations of new recruits and the Army infantry. "All of our advertising is based on real-life stories," explained Colonel Thomas Nickerson, director of strategic outreach for the U.S. Army, to Advertising Age. "If you look at our '2400/7' series, it demonstrates what soldiers are doing in their jobs. It's reality TV. We don't use actors. Our research tells us that these kids want to know what the deal is. They want to know what the experience is before they purchase it."

In 2004 the U.S. Marine Corps, notorious for attracting thrill seekers, continued its longtime advertising message about the Marines' commitment to courage, honor, and pride. The WPP Group's ad agency J. Walter Thompson, Atlanta, had created advertising for the Marine Corps since World War II. "The Marines have always been the warrior class of all the services," Jay Cronin, managing director of J. Walter Thompson, explained to Advertising Age. "All its advertising has always been true to that message. We have tweaked it, but we have not altered it." In 2004 the Marines Corps aired television spots with the tagline "The Few. The Proud. The Marines."

MARKETING STRATEGY

The "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" campaign began with the release of a new Peace Corps website on September 25, 2003. Designed by communications firm Threespot Media, the new site not only allowed the Peace Corps to measure increased Web traffic during the campaign, but it also added a plethora of new features, including an online application form. According to PR Newswire, David Belman, one of Threespot Media's founders, explained, "With the new site, prospective applicants, current applicants, former Peace Corps volunteers, educators, students, donors, and members of the media, among other groups, can all find precisely what they're looking for quickly and easily."

BBDO tailored the campaign's television, print, radio, and billboard advertisements to target "Unfulfilled Idealists." Prior to launching the campaign in September, the ad agency analyzed the communication styles and decision-making processes of "Unfulfilled Idealists." Then, hoping to package the 27-month-long commitment with the Peace Corps as an opportunity for personal growth, BBDO released advertising that mimicked the target audience's communication style. The actor Matthew McConaughey provided the voice-over for a television spot titled "Life Is Calling," which first showed images specific to a prospering society, such as freeways and commercial jets in flight. The spot ended with images such as people pulling fishing nets onto a beach and other scenes from underdeveloped countries. During the 60-second commercial McConaughey asked, "How far would you go to help someone? Would you go to the end of your driveway? Would you cross a street? Would you cross an ocean? To a place 6,000 miles from home? And how long would you go … Would you go for a week? A month? A year? Would you go for two years? Would you go if you could use your knowledge to teach someone and, in the process, maybe learn something yourself? Life is calling. How far will you go? Peace Corps."

The campaign tried to deliver its message as if from a kindred spirit of the "Unfulfilled Idealist." Commercial dialogue and ad copy mimicked the metaphoric language that BBDO had observed among "Unfulfilled Idealists." Print ads featured the Peace Corps logo above the image of a sunrise and the copy "Never have to start sentences with 'I should've …" Print ads targeting an older audience included the copy, "Do people tell you you're over the hill? What if you were? Over the hill, over a stream, and over an ocean. To another continent." The Emmy-winning actor Forest Whitaker was featured in a radio advertisement titled "Paths," during which Whitaker suggested that listeners should take the path less traveled by joining the Peace Corps. "Could you explain that helping the people of Peru improve their community would also have an effect on your own?" he asked. "Or assisting an entrepreneur in Ukraine to launch her small business? Or creating a support group in Malawi for children orphaned by AIDS?"

The campaign appeared in 27 American advertising markets, including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, San Francisco, Detroit, and Atlanta. The campaign's TV spots aired across cable networks on donated media. Outdoor posters also appeared on Metrorail and Metrobus signs in the Washington, D.C., area.

OUTCOME

Not only did "Life Is Calling. How Far Will You Go?" earn a Gold EFFIE Award in the Recruitment Advertising category in 2005, but the campaign also helped increase the number of submitted Peace Corps applications by 20 percent in nine months. The Peace Corps' retrofitted website, which started accepting online applications at the beginning of the campaign, saw a 73 percent surge in activity over the previous year.

Even though the campaign's application submissions increased 20 percent, the number of volunteers accepted into the Peace Corps increased very little. As a result of limited funding, the organization only expanded by 277 volunteers between 2003 and 2005. When the Peace Corps requested an annual budget of $359 million from Congress at the start of the campaign, the organization was only granted a little over $300 million. The U-Wire quoted Anne-Michelle Reilly, an advocacy intern for the Peace Corps, as explaining, "the Peace Corps is a great organization that is grossly under-funded. They are one of the few U.S. Government organizations that is respected worldwide, mostly because the goal of the program is to present to the world a positive view of America." Reilly continued, "[President George W.] Bush promised to double the number of volunteers to 14,000 and he proposed a budget increase of 20 percent last year, but Congress reduced that significantly."