15/05/2014 By Waka Reading Time: 2 Minutes

If there was one place that hasn’t been explored by brands, that’d be Space.

Until now, says the New Yorker.

Space used to belong to the national governments in the past. But private sectors have started to take this ‘unexplored’ chance for marketing purposes. Gravity was a big hit, and NASA on Instagram got lots of fans. Consumers seem to love the concept.

Actually brands are moving into space quite rapidly. It’s no longer confined to the U.S and Russia, or China. Private companies are tapping into the under-explored frontier too.

So, are we going to see more advertisements moving into space?

‘’Space Billboards’’

Tang would probably claim to be the first one to utilise space advertising in the 1960s. Pizza Hut also attempted to deliver a pizza to International Space Station in 2001 just to get their logo placed on a rocket.

Omega released the Moon Watch as its Speedmaster series. And Virgin Galactic is trying to take you to space since at least 2007.

But perhaps the most recent – and craziest – publicity stunts happened in space are Red Bull and Lynx. I’m sure you still remember Red Bull’s Space Jump in 2012. Millions of people were glued to their screens to see this bold experiment (Huffington Post).

Felix Baumgartner’s 127,852.4 feet jump happened in only 10 minutes – and media coverage was worth tens of millions in pounds.

 

One year later, Lynx also jumped into this topic, offering a free space travel for 23 wanna-be astronauts from around the world (see Marketing Magazine).

 

 

Maybe this is one of the most masculine ads I’ve ever seen. Anyhow, it certainly was one of the biggest marketing campaigns and a success in consumer engagement. Though for others it sounded almost unreal.

Come to Space to Drink Pocari Sweat.

The latest space advertisement by this Japanese pharmaceutical company, Otsuka has a different approach. Its project and impact will span over the next decades. But most of all, it is aiming to reach the moon.

Yes, it is oddly named. FYI, it is NOT sending a canned human sweat to the moon. It does not contain any human sweat and it certainly doesn’t taste like sweat at all. 

Instead, its agenda is to send ‘‘a 1 kilogram titanium can filled with powdered sports drink and children’s dreams to the moon’’ according to The Verge. The project called The Lunar Dream Capsule involves a number of local SMEs and global tech start-ups.

It is more complicated and elaborated than you think.

The specifically-developed capsule tolerates the temperature that swings from -170 to 110°C. The simple design actually is composed of ‘‘more than 70 components that were custom-designed to protect it from vibrations during launch and extreme conditions on the moon’s surface’’. And it will contain 120 message plates – made of titanium and ‘‘laser-engraved with handwritten dreams’’ of kids in Asia (see TechAsia). And the capsule is to be delivered in October 2015 from Pittsburgh, USA.

How did it start?

‘‘There is water on the moon.’’ – It all started from here (Businesswire).

The day when the moon becomes the second home for humans may not be that faraway.

And this drinks brand – also known as ‘‘ion supply drink’’ wants to be the first on the moon to replenish ‘‘water and electrolytes’’ in dehydrated bodies (Otsuka.co.jp).

Copies of Dream Ring, a key to open the capsule, are to be given to the children as they write their wishes. They’re hoping that one day one of them will go to the moon to unlock it, and drink the product using the water from the moon in the future.

Will we see more brands expanding to space?

We might, we might not. It’s way too costly. And the impact might diminish if everyone was to do space billboards.

Nevertheless, Pocari Sweat’s project is pretty cool. Besides, there is something social about it – carrying children’s wishes and collaborating with local businesses and startups.

I just hope the reality will be just as breath-taking as the image.

Well, surely they won’t be successful without breaking a sweat.

Fingers crossed for Pocari Sweat!

What do you think? London Web Agency Appnova – keep following us on Twitter @appnova and “like” us on Facebook for useful news and tasteful digressions about geeky stuff.

Source: TechAsia

 

 

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