Long before most of today’s copywriters and art directors were born, there was another breed of mad men, the crew of Apollo 11, who strapped themselves to giant rockets and flew to the moon, with no real certainty of what awaited them.
Last July 20th marked the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, and Omega, Louis Vuitton and Google were a few of the brands that came along for this ride.
Of course, Omega watches and NASA go way back. The Omega Speedmaster made history by becoming the official timepiece of Apollo 11, not to mention the first product placement on the moon.
For the anniversary, the brand release a commemorative watch and advertisements in publications around the world. In Manila, a special 4-page insert came with the day’s edition of Philippine Daily Inquirer. Inspired by American dailies that headlined the event in 1969, the front page featured Omega Speedmaster and that other Sixties icon, President John F. Kennedy.
Luxury brand Louis Vuitton surprised many with its new ad campaign featuring Apollo 11 alumnus Buzz Aldrin and fellow space travellers Sally Ride and Jim Lovell.
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Shot by Annie Leibovitz, the astronauts on the hood of a battered pickup truck, gazing wistfully at the stars as the wind blows through their hair. In a video, they are sitting in the California desert, talking about how space changed their lives.
Antoine Arnault, Vuitton’s head of communications, said the astronauts each donated a “significant” portion of their modeling fee to Al Gore’s Climate Project.
On the Internet, Google Earth went out of its way to map the moon, so users can explore lunar images and related lunar content.
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In a post on the official Google blog, Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer, says the software will help millions of people learn about space. Moon in Google Earth details all of the Apollo landing missions, and offers lunar surface panoramas in Google’s Street View format.
So far, Google has received no complaints about violations of privacy.
