Republic of Singapore Navy
It all begins with an idea.
The Challenge
The Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) faced an increasingly difficult recruitment landscape. With Gen Z entering the workforce, traditional career messaging was losing traction. Younger audiences were questioning the meaning of work, seeking purpose-driven careers, and rethinking identity beyond conventional paths. RSN needed to ensure its brand and recruitment campaigns resonated with these shifting mindsets to remain top of mind for future talent.
The Approach
To address this, we conducted bi-yearly campaign wave testing and ongoing cultural foresight work to deeply understand how Gen Zs in Singapore think about careers, purpose, and identity. The aim was not just to gather surface-level opinions, but to uncover the underlying cultural forces and values shaping their decisions, and what drives them to take action. This would provide a strong strategic foundation for RSN’s brand platform and guide the targeting and creative execution of recruitment campaigns.
Research Design
We designed a multi-method approach:
Cultural trends scanning: Mapping global and local youth culture shifts in work, identity, and aspiration.
In-depth qualitative research: Friendship groups, conversations and surveys with Gen Zs to understand how they define success, purpose in life, and what they wanted out of their careers.
Behavioural analysis: Looking at how these values play out in everyday choices, from career exploration to media habits.
This triangulation helped us go beyond stereotypes of Gen Z and capture a nuanced picture of their worldview.
Key Insights
Careers as identity projects - For Gen Z, work isn’t just a pay check, but an extension of self and a way to signal values and belonging. In the young impressionable ages of students, it is also a way for them to step-into different characters that different career paths might potentially lead them to.
Rise of micro-purposes – The idea of one’s purpose being tied to one’s career no longer holds weight for them. Now, purpose is an ever evolving concept. It manifests in their day to day routines, their hobbies, their relationships with the people around them and the causes they believe in. One’s career is just a way for them to live out their purpose in all these other areas.
Reframing sacrifice – Traditional narratives of national service framed around patriotism and obligation no longer resonate. Gen Zs are skeptical of nationalism as a duty imposed on them. To win their attention, military service needs to be positioned as a path to personal growth, bold experiences, and future opportunities – a career that can shape identity, develop transferable skills and open doors beyond the Navy.
Impact & Outcomes
These insights shaped RSN’s brand platform “It’s Not Crazy, It’s the Navy” — a bold statement that reframes naval service as a purposeful and aspirational choice. The strategy guided both flagship recruitment films (to capture broad cultural imagination) and more tactical executions like direct mailers (to connect with individuals considering enlistment).
The result: RSN was able to stay culturally relevant, engage Gen Z on their own terms, and build a recruitment strategy that speaks to the next generation’s evolving sense of purpose.