To protect and serve today’s America, the U.S. Army must stay ahead of ever evolving threats. This means having the most advanced technology: capable of handling the challenges of tomorrow. But battles are not won by technology alone – it’s the people behind the technology that are solving our nation’s greatest challenges. That’s why the U.S. Army seeks to recruit the nation’s most innovative problem solvers, ones who can outsmart complex adversaries. In this instance, we were seeking to recruit STEM candidates.

But being known as the world’s pre-eminent fighting force has its perceptual drawbacks, primarily the belief that the focus is on physical combat. This is particularly true for STEM students who see the U.S. Army as an outdated institution comprised primarily of brawn – a place that’s not for them. Our job was to reveal the reality…that the Army is made up of the nation’s most innovative thinkers who are equipped with today’s most advanced technologies. We set out to create a campaign that could attract highly qualified STEM candidates and motivate them to learn more about the Army’s STEM careers.

We developed an online simulated mission so difficult that only 5% of users (the most elite of STEM candidates) could be capable of completing all levels, purposely reflecting the same acceptance rates as the nation’s most prestigious universities. We partnered with Google designing the missions in WebGL and integrating multiple Google technologies, such as Google Maps, Google Translate and Google Places, which users used to solve various challenges throughout the simulation. And we leveraged Google’s broad network solutions like AdMob, Google Display Network, and YouTube. Most importantly, to create the game levels, we reached out to Army subject matter experts to ensure the levels reflected the real Army skills needed to carry out real Army missions. Seven levels were created in total with each level being more difficult than the last. We named it Cryptaris Mission.