Can You Spot the Navy Special Ops Sailors Hidden in Other Brands' Ads?

Seven brands took part in this unique recruitment campaign

Do you have the dedication, attention to detail and physical and mental toughness it takes to be a U.S. Navy Special Ops Sailor?

As a follow-up to the U.S. Navy sponsoring the USA Water Polo team at the Paris Olympics, VML developed a print campaign to target potential recruits.

Special Ops sailors appear in various brand ads running in a single issue of USA Water Polo’s SkipShot magazine. But … they’re hidden in plain sight (more or less).

Aflac, TruGreen, the Greater Miami Visitor and Convention Bureau, United Rentals, Leidos and the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation participated.

Further inside the mag is an ad asking readers if they found all the hidden sailors. “If you found them all, you might have what it takes to be one of them,” it says.

Visitors to Navy.com can find clues. 

“We looked at the job—Special Ops is a career that stays hidden most of the time,” says Ryan Blum, CCO at VML. “You don’t see them, nor do they want to be seen. That sparked us to think how we could hide them in the magazine. Then that led us to reaching out to other brands about doing a collaboration.”

Each brand is a VML client, except for Aflac.