Six Years, One Mission: Helping Veterans Choose VA

Posted on 02.20.25

A national campaign built to reach every Veteran, at every stage of life.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs serves millions of Veterans, service members and their families through health care, education, disability, home loan and burial benefits, among other programs. In 2019, VA’s Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs asked our team to help unify its outreach under one simplified message: ChooseVA. What began as a paid media effort centered on traditional placements and sports partnerships has grown into a six-year, multichannel campaign spanning traditional media, digital, social, video, audio and out-of-home advertising nationwide.

The Arrow Advantage

Mission-aligned campaign strategy and execution
Research-driven media planning and real-time optimization
Creative development that centers real Veteran stories

Results at a Glance

$79.2 million in media purchased from February 2020 through April 2025
3 billion impressions and 30.8 million click-throughs generated
$299 million in added value secured for VA
More than 796,000 Veterans enrolled in VA health care under the PACT Act
Five Hermes Creative Gold Awards and a Platinum MarCom Award for creative excellence

Veterans Health Administration EHR modernization support

CHALLENGE

Millions of Veterans. Every background, every region, every reason to tune out.

Veterans are not a single audience. They differ by generation, region, health needs and life stage, and some of the hardest groups to reach, including rural Veterans and Veterans in historically underserved markets, don’t respond to conventional advertising. VA needed a partner who could speak authentically to all of them and adjust fast when circumstances changed. During the pandemic, VA needed a vaccination campaign built almost overnight. In 2022, passage of the PACT Act meant millions of Veterans suddenly qualified for expanded benefits and needed to know it quickly. Each shift called for new research, new creative and a new media plan, without slowing the rest of the campaign.

SOLUTIONS

Research-driven planning paired with creative that treats Veterans like people, not personas

Each campaign year starts with an Advertising and Strategic Communications Plan grounded in Veteran population data and media consumption research from sources including Nielsen Scarborough, Nielsen Audio, Nielsen Home Video and GfK MRI. That research shapes market selection, messaging and tactics. Our creative team combines documentary-style video, testimonials from real Veterans and their families and a range of formats, from digital display to out-of-home placements, to build an emotional connection rather than a transactional one. A proprietary demand-side platform allows real-time optimization of digital placements, so the campaign adjusts to performance data as it arrives instead of waiting for a post-mortem. When VA needed to move fast, our team matched the pace: a 10-week COVID-19 vaccination campaign launched in two days, and a full PACT Act campaign was developed and launched within one month of the legislation’s passage.

RESULTS

The kind of results that show up in Veterans’ lives, not just a media report

From February 2020 through April 2025, the campaign purchased $79.2 million in media and delivered 28.3 billion impressions, 30.8 million click-throughs and $299 million in added value, with placements across all 210 national media markets. A rural Veterans breakout campaign in 2024 alone generated 148 million impressions and 353,000 attributable site visits. Beyond the numbers, the PACT Act campaign helped drive more than 796,000 Veterans to enroll in VA health care and contributed to more than 4.4 million disability claims. VA leadership has rated the work exceptional across quality, schedule, cost control and management in every annual performance review, and the campaign’s creative has earned five Hermes Creative Gold Awards, a Platinum MarCom Award and nine MarCom Gold Awards.