I was listening to an interesting commentary and the speaker used a great marketing illustration that I believe is useful to The American Legion. The speaker pointed out, quite accurately I might add, that the McDonald’s Happy Meal has stood the test of time. McDonald’s has used their Happy Meals to target and reach children for decades now and the lure of the Happy Meal does not appear to be waning. Even in the face of childhood obesity attacks, the Happy Meal sales still maintain a sizeable market share. And for the most part, the contents of the Happy Meal have not changed all that much over the years. What does change, with regularity, is the packaging to meet the interest of the current market.

McDonald’s public relations staff and advertising teams are experts at determining what is fresh and relevant and gear their packaging towards that end. They stay abreast of the latest movies and fads of pop culture and know what images resonate with people. I say all that because we could learn a lot from their ability to reach an ever changing market but maintaining a core product.

The American Legion has been serving our nations veterans for almost 100 years. We have steadfastly petitioned our lawmakers to increase benefits for our country’s warriors but sadly our ranks have been dwindling at an unprecedented rate. Even though our core mission has not changed, and remains as relevant today as it did when we began in 1919; the way we package the message must change in order to reach our newest service members. We can either change with the times or fall off the books like Howard Johnson’s restaurant chain. (Who were they? My point exactly.) The question is, “Are we willing to change our packaging in order to reach today’s veterans?”

We, as a service organization, need to take a hard look at the way we do business, and recognize that we have a tremendous amount of work to do in order to repackage our organization. Our core values and principles have stood the test of time however the way we present our goals and mission must change or we will find ourselves irrelevant and obsolete in today’s society. It is not too late to turn this ship around but we must all be willing to put our hands on the wheel to make this happen. Together we can create a bright future of continued service to our communities, our nation and to our fellow service members. For God and Country, We Are Legion Strong!

Brian Rietvelt, Post Commander