Marines on MySpace

MTV Think News - Marines Totally Want To Be Your MySpace Friend — And Recruit You

Excerpts:

The courting of the MySpace generation — the site now claims more than 96 million members — is a nod to the importance of tapping the potential of the Internet to reach America's wired youth, according to Major Wes Hayes, Marine Corps Recruiting Command spokesperson.

The site, which features a selection of downloadable Marine wallpaper, also has links to recruiters and, so far, boasts more than 13,000 friends with handles like Promiscuous, Leatherneck and Tha Rock.

"The Marine Corps is always looking for new and innovative ways to make sure our target audience, young men and women ages 18 to 24, are informed about the Marines," said Hayes, adding that the reach into MySpace was not related to the kind of missed recruitment goals some branches of the armed services have experienced in the past few years.

Given the string of highly publicized incidents involving child predators trolling MySpace to meet underage children, the Army pulled its banner ads from the site earlier this year, according to Louise Eaton, media and Web chief for the U.S. Army Accession Command. But the Army kept in touch with MySpace in the interim, and after the site recently issued new security guidelines and assured the Army that MySpace was more secure, the Army is prepping a return of the ads as well as a profile page. "The purpose [of the Army profile page] is to let young people know about the opportunities Army offers," Eaton said.

And why MySpace? "Because young people are there," she said. "We have to go to where young people are." The Air Force advertises on MySpace but doesn't have a profile page, and the Navy has no presence on the site at this point. The Army's profile page is being worked on now by its ad agency, and Eaton said it should be up soon.

"The Internet is a very powerful tool and we see it as a new and innovative way to reach our target audience," Hayes said.