Why should the Army be realistic?

Photo: Sergeant Niklas Ehlén/Combat Camera - Försvarets Bildbyrå

In today’s Svenska Dagbladet, the indignant cover story “uncovers” that the current recruitment campaign by the Swedish Armed Forces is unrealistic. TV ads show South African and Somalian actors pretenting to be Swedish soldiers, using the wrong kind of radar screens and in general showing an exaggerated macho image of life in the Swedish Army.
Well of course the ads are unrealistic. How else are they supposed to attract attention? Everybody else lies in advertising, so why shouldn’t the Army? Because it’s a serious part of society and career choices for young people should be based on facts, not emotions, say the critics.
Really? Since when have young people been motivated by facts? Or old people, for that matter? And I take issue with the opinion that military service is more serious than our psychological well-being. Why should it be okay for advertisers to mess with our personal fears and insecurities, but not with career choices? Companies have whole HR departments whose main objective it is to fool young people into thinking they do important work. Why is this okay, but not when the military uses the same trick?
Let young hotshots think they will be patrolling the Horn of Africa after graduation. Reality will catch up with them eventually. Please don’t beat their dreams out of them just yet.

Mazsalaca

Maybe I’m old, but I didn’t think the bogus Tele2 meteor strike last year was funny. The Swedish telecom company dug a huge big hole in a field in Mazsalaca, Latvia, then leaked phony YouTube videos and stuff to get media attention.
The whole thing turned out to be a marketing stunt for some service of theirs called “Meteorite”. The Latvian government didn’t think it was funny, though. Neither did the military, who had to seal off the area and send in scientists before they could assess what was going on. Tele2 had to apologize and promise to reimburse the government for its expenses.
Anyway, now the Tele2 campaign has won a Golden Hammer for best use of guerrilla marketing, and I’m ticked off again that a commercial company thinks it’s funny to make a government look stupid (something I usually don’t mind at all).
Maybe I’m just unamused because it’s Tele2, who employs the world’s most obnoxious telemarketers. Maybe I would have loved it if it had been an artistic provocation, or a trick played on Scientologists or gullible new agers.
Or again – maybe I’m just old.