INTERACTIVITY/ENGAGEMENT:
Air National Guard, in partnership with eshots Inc.

The Air National Guard aimed to bring the experience of the armed forces to life through its mobile experiential activation—and identify potential qualified recruits.

To help make this happen, the ANG teamed with eshots to create an engaging front-end experience and collect valuable data on the back-end to help the agency and client evaluate the program’s success. All leads are directly transferred into the Air National Guard’s CRM platform, but hand-raisers and qualified leads are flagged for immediate follow-up by the recruiting team.

Technical issues that needed to be solved at the start of the program included integrating a third-party augmented reality platform into eshots’ software, and setting up accurate and consistent nightly data transfers. These problems were all mitigated through high-level account management.

Consumers begin by completing a registration survey via eshots’ QuickCapture app. The goal of the survey is to qualify the leads based on pre-determined criteria including age, awareness and interest in the ANG. In some cases, consumers need to complete and sign a digital waiver that fulfills all legal and insurance requirements for consumers to participate in the on-site physical competitions.

At the second station, consumers compete in physical challenges. The high scores are displayed on a leader board and prizes are awarded to consumers on-site who surpass their goal. At the third station, participants take a photo featuring augmented reality technology, which places the consumer in one of four Air National Guard uniforms. They scan their dog tag, which integrates their photo into their post-event email and can be retrieved through a custom photo microsite. At the fourth station, recruiters speak privately with interested candidates and ask them to complete a Recruiter Exit Interview. Less than 24 hours after the event, consumers receive an email thanking them for participating.

Mid-program, the results generated were impressive. Over 26,600 unique consumers’ contact information was collected, a 39% increase over the same period last year. Nearly 4,200 opted-in to receive future communications from the Air National Guard, and of the 22,678 Rapid Response emails sent as follow-up, 6,845 were opened, and 507 high-quality leads requested to be contacted by a recruiter.