Space Is Becoming the New Frontier for Brand Marketing
On top of the plethora of NFTs that have been steadily releasing as of late, another form of technology is taking over, or rather, is further sowing its seeds in the marketing world. I am talking of course about the increase in space advertising and the sending of things into orbit via rockets.
While this idea for space marketing is nothing new, having existed as early as 2001 when Pizza Hut spent millions on sending an over-seasoned salami pizza to the ISS (International Space Station), we are seeing an abundance of space-related promotional news — and it’s not just because of the recent successful landing of NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars.
It is due to a number of things. With the advancement of technology being the obvious culprit, it’s the proliferation of commercial space travel, or space tourism, that sits at the top of the list for reasons why we are hearing more about things getting sent to space. NASA has always had a policy where it barred any outside branding or advertisements aboard its ships and equipment, this is the reason why it was Russian astronauts eating the salami pizza in Pizza Hut’s space pizza delivery publicity stunt and not American pilots. Now we have options. From Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, companies are flocking in to have their names associated with the next frontier of marketing, and with less stringent rules on advertising, you best believe that these commercial space travel companies are all ears when it comes to additional resources.
Actual space tourism on a functional level is still years away, and majorly expensive, but that still hasn’t prevented brands from getting in on the extraterrestrial action. Though still in infancy, the number of commercial space travel/exploration-related news will most likely increase as we head towards the future, and just like how billboards became the medium of choice for outdoor advertising in the 1860s, the rocketship could be its replacement. Imagine — you look to the left outside of your space station hotel room window and you catch a glimpse of a small communications satellite, and just above its solar array, a flashing red “Drink Coca-Cola” display.
Read below for a few examples of how Space has already entered the marketing atmosphere, and which other business sectors will be jumping aboard the looming industry.
Beer
The only thing that could contest the volume of NFTs coming out is probably the number of new hard seltzers this year. Easily the alcoholic beverage of 2021, Miller saw this as an opportunity to make a statement on its commitment to brewing beer, and instead of launching a seltzer of its own, they launched a seltzer… into space. Their whimsical campaign saw over one million people tune in to see a hard seltzer-strapped rocket (albeit CGI) go up in flames where Miller captioned the launch as a success. The emphatic visuals were followed by a comment from Sofia Colucci, Vice President Miller Family of Brands, “For years, Miller has been an expert in brewing – from Lite to High Life to MGD – and we’ve never changed or compromised our love of great beer. Because we’re a beer. Not a seltzer. In case we haven’t made that clear yet.”
