The U.S. Army is full of biologists and pilots and engineers, but people don’t know much about those roles so they don’t picture themselves in them. If we’re going to inspire our target to enlist, we need to help them imagine the possibilities of these roles first.

People know what a soldier’s world looks like, but do they what it sounds like? Instead of telling our target, we invited them to create it with us through our Warrior Tracks contest.

Using the immersive power of music, we put our audience in a soldier’s sonic world and explored what it sounds like to them. With musicologists, we created sonic archetypes of five different roles with sound packs of corresponding audio samples. Everything was released on SoundCloud, where our audience downloaded each pack with a dossier explaining the role. We challenged them to create the sound of a warrior a got rap, electronica, hip-hop, and more in return.

Our top tracks went into a U.S. Army playlist, and every submission lives on SoundCloud where creators and fans can continue to immerse themselves in the diverse roles and sounds of the U.S. Army.

We earned 2-8X more like than any other brand and garnered the largest following from a branded contest ever. 10 million impressions in 25 days. The first brand to organically reach SoundCloud's new and hot playlist. The largest following from a branded contest ever on the platform.