Stefano Hatfield on Advertising

K and US army recruitment is - unsurprisingly enough - in various degrees of crisis. In Britain, despite shrinking overall numbers, the Army was some 1,200 off its 12,000 recruitment target last year, and faces the same prospect this year.

Reports suggest that the infantry is some 35 per cent down, and the Territorial Army is short, too. Although the Army admits that it is struggling to recruit across the board, it nevertheless denies that this is due to Iraq, pointing instead to more young people going into higher education and then alternative careers.

Maybe. In the US, the problem is even worse. Already this year, the US army is some 7,000 short of its 80,000 target. In May it only achieved 57 per cent of its target, giving rise to new 15-month enlistment periods (rather than four years) and the fear, frequently denied by President Bush, that a return to the draft was likely. It was more remarkable in the current context that it did make its target in June. Even the Marines are struggling for recruits.

So, the US army has done what many other panicking clients do: announced a review of its ad-agency relationships. Agencies will be understandably wary of pitching. The army placed its contract out to tender in spring 2004, put several agencies through hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of hoops only to call off the review this April. Now, it is asking them to start again, albeit with the promise of a two-year contract and up to three annual renewals (all other government ad contracts are renewed after one year).

The incumbent agency, Leo Burnett, will have decidedly mixed views, but has no choice but to repitch a $200m account of such significance. How much can its much-debated "army of one" campaign really be responsible in the current context, both PR and real, for the success or failure of recruitment when the insurgency is claiming lives daily (1,844 US and 93 UK at the last count)? The US wounded total alone is 14,000.

What seems to be happening on both sides of the Pond is that even if the prospect of real fighting and death doesn't deter some potential young recruits, it does their parents. That's why at least one ad in the latest Leo Burnett campaign tells parents that letting their children join the army is the patriotic thing to do.

It has to be one of the toughest challenges in advertising right now - even with the controversial ban on the media showing the returning flag-draped coffins still in place. Bush's approval ratings are slumping on account of the war, and there is a gnawing fear among the general population that there is no exit strategy - at least, not until who knows how many more US lives are lost.

Against this backdrop, it's small wonder that the army has started to bend its rules on anything from homosexuality to tattoos to keep down its attrition rate. Recruiters, under huge pressure to meet targets (as seen in Fahrenheit 9/11) pursue ever more aggressive tactics, such as threatening to arrest a prospect for not attending his interview. Another recent case involved a recruiter advising a potential recruit on how to get around the mandatory drug tests.

The armies on both sides of the Atlantic each have recent histories filled with very powerful, successful advertising. The only strategy neither has really tried is the truth about Iraq. I mean that not as a political statement but as a genuine question: would running advertisements about what Iraq is really like for soldiers attract a committed and patriotic recruit willing to stay the course, from a family that is fully behind their child? I doubt we will ever know.

I AM not sure what to make of Asda giving out parenting tips in stores, but I know I could have done with them. I'm even less sure why I am using the past tense, given that my daughters are eight and seven respectively, but I'm not sure that will switch me to Asda. Returning to supermarket shopping in London after five years in Manhattan is a depressing experience (limited choice, tasteless produce, everything over-packaged). As you may know, the giant sheds that so blight London are banned in Manhattan, with the result that most Manhattanites do their shopping in a more piecemeal manner. For me, that meant the wonderful Gourmet Garage and the fantasy land that is Dean & Deluca, which happened to be just two blocks north of our apartment. Then, along came Fresh Direct, and suddenly, like everyone we know, we are shopping online and having super fresh produce delivered.

Now, just as we are leaving, arrives the fabulous Whole Foods in Union Square - like having the famed Farmers' Market in the square come to life with an alcohol section and air con. I am not aware of any advertising for any of these brands. They were all word-of-mouth recommendations. Let's hope then, by the same token, that Ocado lives up to its promising rep.

WHEN IN Rome... Having just written how strangely reassuring it was to see Graham Fink in London, there he was at SoHo House in New York, alongside his new M&C Saatchi European chairman Nick Hurrell, and Sunita Gloster, the new business chief who was once at Lowe. They were in the Big Apple to repitch British Airways. A couple of nights earlier, the familiar DDB London trio of Paul Hammersley, Lucy Jameson and Jorian Murray were also at SoHo House, again having pitched for BA.

These days, there are more senior current or former London admen on the roof there, around the pool, than there ever are in the London equivalent: Mark Wnek, Dave Droga, Brett Gosper, Rosemary Ryan and Paul Woolmington are constantly augmented by the likes of Hammersley, Chris Ingram, Frank Budgen, John Harlow, Mother types and Tamara Ingram. Logan Wilmont has returned to London, but Nick Brien is about to take up residence in October.

As the sunset cocktails flow, the hardest thing is to remember that Hammersley is now DDB (which is no longer BMP), Gloster is with M&C, and Wnek is now Lowe, not them, who used to be. It's especially hard when the M&C website still lists Judy Mitchem as group marketing director, and, as we all know, she has gone to, erm, Lowe herself.

Sigh... It's all a very long way from The Sun and 13 Cantons pub in Soho. Where are the Americans? On the train home to Connecticut, of course.

Hatfield'S Best In Show: Stella Artois 'Le Sacrifice'

I have been meaning to pick this commercial for weeks. Stella Artois' "reassuringly expensive" strategy is possibly my all-time favourite. It's been supported by an apparently endless succession of outstanding miniature films from Lowe ever since the thirsty flower-seller paid for his pint with all his flowers in the first one. The brand itself is one of the phenomenal marketing success stories of the past decade. Stella has achieved mass market sales while maintaining premium pricing - the marketer's holy grail. All the while the consistently excellent ads have become ever more exotic. I was going to say surreal, but that would fail to differentiate this intentionally surrealist mini-gem from its predecessors. You watch it again and again and see something fresh every time. Only a director like Frank Budgen could have brought it to life in just 60 seconds. There is apparently a four minute version which I would love to see. "Reassuringly elephants" indeed.