U.S. Army Reserve's new logo resembles the Army’s star moniker, which was updated in March 2023 as part of its retooled "Be All You Can Be" recruiting campaign. (U.S. Army Reserve)
The U.S. Army Reserve has unveiled a fresh logo and a new slogan, nearly two months after the Army revived its 1980s-era “Be All You Can Be” pitch in hopes of solving recruiting woes.
The Army Reserve posted its new logo — a yellow star with two stripes running diagonally across it — on Facebook and Twitter on April 20.
The double stripe “speaks to the Army Reserve's future and legacy of readiness, as well as the tangible growth and opportunities that soldiers can find in the Army Reserve,” according to a Reserve tweet.
The new marketing campaigns come as the Army struggles to reverse major recruiting shortfalls. The service is looking to attract 65,000 recruits this fiscal year after missing its target of 60,000 recruits by 15,000 in 2022.
The active-duty Army exceeded its recruitment goals for fiscal years 2020 and 2021; but the Reserve failed to meet its goals by 2,144 and 4,189 recruits, respectively, according to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command's website.
The new Reserve logo resembles the Army’s star logo, which was updated in March as part of its retooled recruiting campaign.
Both logos have a yellow star and use a custom font that the Army calls G.I., or Government Issue, Laura DeFrancisco, spokeswoman for the Army Enterprise Marketing Office, wrote in an email Wednesday.
The Reserve’s new logo was met with mixed reviews on Twitter. One user, @johnnykarstadt, described it as “simple, clean, bold, like most of the Army’s other designs."
A separate tweet from @BoldCityPoet quipped that the logo “has 1980s pastel neon vibes.”
Another tweet from @gene_ziemba said it brought to mind the bright neon yellow belt that soldiers wear during outdoors physical training: "Now I cannot unsee the reflective belt."
The Army and the Reserve have shared the same recruiting slogan and bordered star logo since 2019. The previous slogan, “What’s Your Warrior,” was meant to elicit for recruits the “many ways to be a warrior” and how they can “contribute to something greater than themselves while improving who they will become,” according to a marketing office news release in January 2021.
This time, the Reserve opted for its own slogan, "It's Your Time," to differentiate itself from the Army. DeFrancisco said research indicates a limited public understanding of the Reserve's unique benefits and opportunities for career advancement.
"The campaign’s creative approach addresses the duality of civilian and Army Reserve experiences to distinguish it from other components, highlights the range of capabilities and career fields available to soldiers, and reveals how the benefits of Army Reserve service propel them forward," she said.
Army Col. Matthew Nelson, director of the Army Reserve Engagement team for Eighth Army, said the Reserve's new logo “shows the history of where we’ve been, as well as trying to keep up our readiness.”
“As you look at how designs have changed over time, you can definitely tell that the star is more modern,” he told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday. “It gets back to how we're trying to find a way to illustrate how we’re innovating. There’s the Army Reserve of the past, and as the Army moves forward, so does the Army Reserve."
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth described the recruiting shortcomings as "a very serious situation" during a Feb. 23 panel discussion hosted by the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
“We really have to get after our recruiting challenge,” she said. “This is, frankly, a challenge not just for the United States Army but for all of the services.”
Roughly 190,000 soldiers and 11,000 civilians serve in the Army Reserve, according to its website. The Reserve celebrated its 115th anniversary on Sunday.
