Creative Platform
The creative platform is designed to guide messaging aimed at supporter audiences. It should be used across marketing and communication channels.
Creative Platform
The new “We’re With” creative platform articulates the USO brand positioning, which is now clarified, tightly cohesive with current USO mission delivery and relevant to our audiences in today’s culture.
Consumer Insights
Empowered Optimists
Have strong natural empathy that is activated when they are reminded of the humanity of the people serving in the U.S. military and their family members.
Want to have a personal, positive impact on individual lives, and do it as part of a larger collective of similarly engaged people.
Are engaged by, and see a need for their support through, relatable, individual stories that demonstrate that “even the strongest among us needs someone by their side.”
Platform Articulation
Humans have very few needs. Among them: food, water, shelter. But we also need Companionship. Community. Compassion.
We all need to know that we are not alone. Even the strongest among us needs someone there for them. Someone who understands and supports them. Someone who cares.
That’s why the USO is with each and every person in the U.S. military, and with all of their family members.
Physically and emotionally. Wherever they are. Because they’re not just a sailor, soldier, airman, Marine, guardian, coastie, or Guard member. They’re not just a military spouse or a military kid. They’re a person. A person with needs.
And we’re with them.
USO. For the people who serve.
Bringing it to Life
As this platform is brought to life in new creative executions and across channels, we should strive to maintain these consistent aspects.
Key elements
- Focus on stories of individuals, family units, or small groups of friends. Use first names for people, instead of rank and last name.
- Frame creative to center the person(s) with the need, not the USO.
- Emphasize challenges that are broadly relatable, but intensified in military life.
- Communicate the USO’s role in meeting the need. Depending on the execution, this may be a nod to a category of core programs or, if space allows, more detailed and compelling information.
- Prioritize most motivating and happily surprising aspects of USO mission delivery:
- Care Packages – especially when delivered in places and moments that demonstrate the USO’s unique access to military locations and situations
- Spouse support programs (including Transitions)
- Child support programs
- Centers – both quantitative and qualitative aspects
- Quantitative: over 250 locations around the world; a presence on military installations, at airports, on ships; in remote destinations and at the heart of military family communities.
- Qualitative: Welcoming to all people serving and their immediate families; Kind volunteers and staff provide a friendly smile, a shoulder to lean on and a listening ear; Visitors can grab a snack, a cold drink, or a cup of coffee. They can pick a comfortable spot to sit and relax. They can find community at a gaming station, over a board game, or watching a movie.
| Key language | |
|---|---|
| We’re with… [insert first name or names] | Use to identify the protagonist(s) of the human story that is being told and assert the USO’s support. |
| For the People Who Serve | Brand tagline. Only use in context where the association with the USO is very clear, such as locked-up with USO badge. |
| Are you with them? (Alt. “Are you with him?”, “Are you with her?”) | Call-to-action that is used only when “We’re with…” is used to set up the story. Purposefully challenging prompt that people can’t really say “no” to. |
| Join the mission | Invitation to become part of the collective of donors and supporters that make the USO mission possible and that is “with” all people serving in the U.S. military and their families. |
| Non-Government. For people, not profit. | Phrasing for optional language that can be used to make the nonprofit status of the USO clear. |
| Thanks to your donation, the USO is with all people serving in the United States military and their families. | Phrasing that can be used when asking for donations. |
Approach to visuals
- Emphasize humanity and emotion by showing faces of people in the military and their families.
