Cadet Recon Series
Cadet Recon Series
Created a scalable research framework that enabled continuous audience testing, accelerated learning, and generated actionable insights to inform recruitment strategies across the Army's digital ecosystem.
Agency
Critical Mass
Client
U.S. Army
Scope
Design System + Research
Challenge:
The Army needed a faster way to understand what motivates prospective recruits and how they navigate career decisions. Instead of building a one-off campaign, we created a scalable research platform designed to continuously test, learn, and evolve across the digital ecosystem.
The framework allowed us to rapidly launch new studies, explore thousands of creative and messaging combinations, and connect campaign experiences with landing environments through a shared feedback loop. The result was a deeper understanding of audience behavior and a steady stream of insights that helped shape future recruitment strategies.
Closed-loop research:
The value wasn't in any single deliverable, but rather in the connected system. By designing an end-to-end ecosystem from display entry-points to digital experience, we created a continuous feedback loop that generated richer insights, informed smarter decisions, and enabled ongoing optimization at scale.
My Role:
Lead the overall design vision and user journey strategy for the Cadet Recon Series, transforming a collection of research initiatives into a scalable testing platform capable of generating continuous audience insights. By aligning research goals, creative development, and experience design, we helped establish a framework that enables rapid iteration and informed decision-making across the recruitment ecosystem.
Impact:
By transforming a traditionally manual process into a scalable research framework, the Cadet Research Series enabled the Army to launch, test, and optimize research initiatives at a significantly faster pace. Built on a modular design system and repeatable experience framework, the platform reduced research program development time by 3x while enabling rapid testing across audiences, messaging strategies, and creative variations. The result was a more agile approach to audience learning, creating a scalable foundation where insights from one initiative could continuously inform and improve future recruitment efforts.
Teammates:
Nigel Dennis - Creative Director, Courtney Schiffres - Copy Lead, Alex Rybarczyk - Designer, Jonathan Crawford - UX Lead, Stephanie Gough - UX, Dan Boland - Lead Developer, Cassie Mai - Producer, Paul Serilla - Strategy Lead, & Team DDB Agency Partners.
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