The US Navy has launched a high-tech scavenger hunt on Reddit to recruit the ‘next generation of submariners’

• The US Navy is recruiting for positions on its submarines on Reddit.
• The military has faced recruitment challenges in recent years, forcing it to get creative.
• The Navy’s campaign includes activities to engage Reddit users in submarine-related tasks.

The US Navy is looking for more tech-savvy recruits to make up the less than 1% of sailors who serve on submarines, and it thinks Reddit might be the best place to find them.

The US Military is no stranger to gimmicky recruitment campaigns.

There were these 1987 ads that compared joining the Marines to being a medieval fantasy knight. The Simpsons even parodied the phenomenon in 2001 when Bart’s short-lived boyband, the “New Kids on the Blecch,” released a top hit that subliminally encouraged children to join the Navy.

While Navy ad campaigns can make enlisting seem like an exciting adventure, some military wings have seen difficulties in recruitment in recent years.

Last year, the Army sent letters to 1,900 active-duty soldiers who had been relieved of their duties after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, asking them to come back. According to NPR, experts say the percentage of young and physically fit Americans prepared to join the military has been shrinking over time.

To find its “next generation of submariners,” the US Navy is now looking to Reddit to find recruits with “a rare blend of intellect and curiosity,” according to VML, the marketing agency behind the Navy’s new Reddit campaign. The Navy and VML partnered to create the new “Sub Hunter” campaign, in which VML says Redditors will have access to activities that use skills Navy submarine crew members must have, like deciphering sonar recordings.

The campaign will offer clues about famous events and submarines in Navy history for Reddit users to decipher. Redditors will have access to redacted coordinate data from famous Navy historical events and a collection of submarine recordings with a hidden, encrypted sound-byte that users will listen to “just like a Navy Sonar Technician” to uncover the message, VML says.

Ryan Blum, VML chief creative officer, said in the statement that the campaign’s goal is to look “deep into the world of subreddits” to find the “special kind of person” that it takes to serve on a Navy submarine.

“We know less than 1% of future sailors qualify to serve on a submarine,” Blum said. “These online communities are teeming with passionate, knowledgeable individuals, and we are challenging them to discover something they didn’t even know they were looking for.”

The Navy did not immediately return a request for comment about the Reddit campaign.