GEICO Shows Online Support for Troops’ Letters
A new interactive Web site dedicated to the preservation of letters and e-mail from American troops has launched in the run-up to Memorial Day and is under the sponsorship of GEICO and the non-profit Legacy Project.
The site, www.AmericanWarLetters.com, offers a selection of clips from the audiobook versions of two collections of soldiers’ letters edited by Andrew Carroll. The books span American wars from the Civil War to Somalia and Bosnia, but the audio clips feature actors such as Oliver Platt and Julianna Margulies reading from messages penned during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
The Web site also offers a link to the Legacy project’s www.WarLetters.com site with tips on ways to preserve the written or e-mail record of family members’ combat experiences.
Both GEICO and Carroll’s publisher Simon & Shuster are branded on the site. GEICO’s sponsorship appears at the beginning and end of a three-minute introductory video when visitors arrive at the site, and at the bottom of the home page.
Simon & Shuster is also present on the home page. Viewers who click on images of the Carroll books are taken to a Web page that offers them the chance to buy all of Carroll’s books from third-party sellers, such as Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. These include “Operation Homecoming,” a collection of letters from the battlefronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a new title, “Grace Under Fire,” showcasing letters of faith in wartime.
The American War Letters Web site was created and is being hosted by the creative services group at Clear Channel Radio. Four flights of 10-and 15-second radio spots about the War letters project and site will run in the top 25 metro markets in the U.S. this year, with airtime purchased and donated by GEICO. The spots will air during the weekends around Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day and Veterans’ Day 2008.
Online audio content will change for each of those holidays to showcase letters from World Wars I and II, Vietnam and the current military conflicts.
Clear Channel will also donate site promotion in the form of 30-second public service announcements and Web banners on the home pages of its more than 800 radio stations nationwide.
“Given our roots in providing insurance to government employees and underwriting American families, GEICO could not resist the opportunity to support the Legacy project in its efforts to preserve and share such important pieces of our country’s history,” GEICO advertising director Bill Brower said in a statement.
The Legacy Project was founded in 1998 as an all-volunteer effort to commemorate servicemen and women by preserving their communications. The organization says that during its 10-year existence it has received originals or copies of more than 80,000 previously unseen letters between soldiers and their families.
