DoD

Lesson #1 from Navy League

By Erik Schechter on May 2, 2012 - 11:00am

How do you get people excited about a non-descript widget? A while back, I wrote a blog post about the advertising challenges faced by components suppliers and offered some workarounds.

Defense Advertising and Self-inflicted Injuries

By Erik Schechter on February 8, 2012 - 5:40pm

Do no harm. It’s a cardinal rule for doctors – and it should be the same for advertisers because a poorly executed ad can do as much damage as a surgeon with a shaky hand.

Recently, when flipping through a defense magazine, I came across one of these misguided ads and was shocked by how badly it served the company that had purchased it.

The one-pager was for comms equipment, and it depicted your typical soldier as an operator. But on his camo cap, there was the word “infidel” written in Arabic-style script, a tweak to Islamic extremists.

Defense Spending Begins to Take Center Stage in 2012 Race

By Elliott Suthers on January 18, 2012 - 7:51pm

It’s been a slow build, but 2012’s crop of GOP candidates have finally begun to stake out their positions on the defense budget. And apart from the decidedly confused Ron Paul — who seems to think that the State Department and Pentagon are the same thing — the group seems to be generally pro-military spending, defying the doom and gloom scenarios that many were expecting.

Think 2011 Was Rough? Just Wait for Next Year...

By Elliott Suthers on December 22, 2011 - 12:55pm

Well, what a year 2011 was. A new SecDef and Pentagon leadership, sequestration and budget cuts, the debt ceiling debate, bin Laden finally getting his comeuppance, U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraq, acquisition reform and all the merger/acquisition/spin-off activity that seems to have captivated the industry are all enough to make anyone’s head spin. I get tired just thinking about the past 12 months.