Pitchmen on the Potomac

By John S. DeMott.

How Uncle Sam sells Amtrak, Army life and Express Mail

It is not his best-known attribute, but Uncle Sam is becoming one of the greatest salesmen since P.T Barnum. Switch on a radio or TV set, flip through a newspaper or magazine, and there he is, in one guise or another. Here is the U.S. Postal Service, sniping at Federal Express, Emery, Purolator and other private-sector small-package carriers, boasting that it can do just as competent a job and make mailers "look good for less." Here is the U.S. Army invading the air waves with its stirring jingle, "Be all that you can be," aiming it especially at June high school and college graduates, who face dim job prospects even with their diplomas and degrees.

The U.S. Government has become one of the biggest advertisers in America. This year the Potomac's pitchmen will probably spend some $200 million through advertising agencies on Madison Avenue and elsewhere in the U.S. That is less than a third of what No. 1 advertiser Procter & Gamble, with its 70 consumer products, might spend this year. In the last tally for 1981, made by Advertising Age, the Government ranked 26th among all advertisers, just behind Ralston Purina (pet foods) and just ahead of Unilever (detergents and toiletries). The Government spent $189 million that year, 8.3% more than in 1980, despite the White House budget squeezing.

Not that ad budgets have escaped the Reagan Administration's ax. The Internal Revenue Service will be forced to rerun old ads this month urging Americans to file early; there is no money in the IRS budget for new advertising. The gutted Energy Department was not was not heard from at all this winter in matters of conservation, as it was during the Carter years. Gone, too, is the voice of the almost extinct Consumer Product Safety Commission, which once advertised appeals for safer lawn mowers, chain saws and children's clothing.

By far the biggest chunk of the Government's 1983 ad dollars, about $162 million, will be spent by the Defense Department for military recruiting. The volunteer Army in all its permutations, including the Army Reserve and ROTC, will consume $89 million of the total, with the rest going to the Air Force ("Aim high"), Navy ("More than a job, an adventure") and Marines ("Maybe you can be one of us"). The Coast Guard, which happens to fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, has an advertising budget of $450,000 to match its small size.

The Army account is the second largest at NW Ayer, the nation's twelfth largest ad agency. This month Ayer aims to reach 14 million people between 18 and 24, nearly everyone in that age grouping in the U.S. In fact, it aims at reaching them all at least 14 times, with TV, radio, newspaper and magazine ads.

With roughly 11 million Americans out of work, the Army would seem to have a ready pool from which to draw the young men and women it needs to meet its authorized strength of about 800,000. But the Army has become pickier than ever. About 80% of enlistees have high school diplomas, vs. 57% when the draft was dropped in 1973. Believe it or not, there are waiting lists to get in, thanks partly to the effective selling campaign. For those who make it, the Army is no longer the haven it once was. Recruits who do not measure up are routinely "fired." Under a policy that became effective in February, soldiers who do not become promotable to sergeant during their first three-year hitch must be screened by a retention board before being allowed to reenlist.

The elevated standards have made the advertising executives' job all the tougher. Ted Regan, Ayer's man on the Army account, sounds like a college admissions officer: "The Army's targets are the top graduating seniors, the ones that are hardest to get, because they do have alternatives."

To lure recruits, the Army demands total realism and accuracy in its ads. Commercials showing maneuvers and training sessions are filmed as they occur, with advisers from the Army's Recruit Command looking on and checking. Neither models nor staged situations are permitted. Says Regan: "We shoot what the Army does. It is a heavily disciplined advertising assignment, unlike any in private industry."

Over the past three years, Ayer's Army ads have won 25 advertising awards and fans in some unexpected quarters. The Soviet Union, for example. To get women to sign up for the Soviet military, recruiters swiped the "Be all you can be" slogan and used it in newspaper articles extolling the virtues of Soviet military life. In Russian, it comes out as "Byt vsyo shto mozhno byt. "

The Government's non-military advertising also appears to be effective. The Postal Service's Express Mail has doubled its volume in two years, as New York's Young & Rubicam has stressed reliability, speed and a cheaper price. Another New York agency, Needham, Harper & Steers, won this year's $20 million account for Amtrak, the operating name of the National Railroad Passenger Corp. set up by Congress a dozen years ago in the wake of the Penn Central bankruptcy. In the latest TV commercial, hangar doors open to reveal not an airplane but a sleek locomotive, and an announcer intones, "See what a thrill it is to fly [pause] on a train." Reservations have gone up 78% since the start of the campaign in January.

If the Government's ads generally accomplish the missions, they occasionally turn up in unlikely places. Take the U.S. Forest Service's Smokey the Bear, 38, now one of the most recognizable symbols in America, along with A T & T's bell. Smokey was on duty last week on an ad placard in a Brooklyn subway station, a zillion miles from the nearest forest. Smokey's message to the tree ess, but no doubt bewildered, urbanites: "Think . . . thanks!" -- By John S. DeMott. Reported by Anne Constable/Washington and Sue Raffety /New York

With reporting by Anne Constable, Sue Raffety This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.