Marine Corps May Change 'The Few, The Proud' Tagline

The United States Marine Corps may be moving away from its iconic "The Few, The Proud, The Marines" slogan as it seeks out a new advertising campaign that will further distinguish the Marines from the other branches of the military.

The Marine Corps will likely feature a new tagline in the campaign, which is scheduled to launch next year, according to the Marine Corps Times.

“'The Few, The Proud’ does a great job distinguishing ourselves from the other branches and making us prestigious to recruits, but it doesn’t say anything about what we do or why we exist,” Lt. Col. John Caldwell, a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command, told the Times. “We believe the new campaign products require a unique tagline to achieve the effort’s objectives.”

Read the full Marine Corps Times report here.

So what will the new campaign entail?

From the Marine Corps Times report:

The new advertising campaign will show Americans how the Marine Corps is different from the other services and reinforce “the elite — almost spiritual — standards the nation has for Marines,” Caldwell said. The service’s contracted advertising agency J. Walter Thompson is creating campaign material.

“The new products are going to frame everything that we do as a fight — a fight that we intend to win,” he said.

Caldwell did not say specifically what the new advertising campaign will show, but he said it is based on three concepts: fighting self-doubt to become a Marine, fighting the nation’s battles and fighting for what’s right in our communities.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has already approved the new advertising strategy, which could include a new “tagline” at the end of recruiting materials that would replace “The Few, The Proud,” Caldwell said.

“You have a narrative and it ends with a certain punctuation mark,” he said. “We want that punctuation marker to be aligned with the messaging throughout the ad.”

Any Marines worried about the change shouldn't. J. Walter Thompson is the same ad agency that created the "The Few, The Proud" campaign in 1977, according to its website, and has worked closely with the Corps since.

According to the J. Walter Thompson website: "For more than 65 years, JWT has partnered with the United States Marine Corps to accomplish one mission: identify the best and brightest of our nation’s youth and challenge them to discover if they have what it takes to earn the title 'Marine.'"

Ditching "The Few, The Proud," though, would mean the end of a widely recognizable slogan featured prominently in Marine Corps advertising and recruiting material.

Image via U.S. Marine Corps