Slashdot Mirror
Drink Pepsi, Go to Space?
Kayaker writes "According to an article on AdAge.com, Pepsi is considering a new promotion contest that would include a ride on the Russian Soyuz space taxi. Maybe Pepsi is better than Coke?"
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Be the first passenger on the new shuttle, Discovery Twist!
...have the cash value, thanks.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Maybe its better? MAYBE?
Blasphemer! Heretic! Burn him!
Maybe if Lance Bass drinks enough Pepsi he can get his childhood wish fulfilled.
what happened to tha harrier jet they promised to the pepsi drinkers a little while back? it was supposed to be a bargain (if you bought 10 million dollars worth of pepsi, i think), but i don't remember if anyone actually got it.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
...I can see lots of disclaimers in my future... Come on, the fine print should be big. Are they that desperate? Stick to beverage making guys. We have enough with Lance Bass going into space already ;)
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Lance Bass was spotted at the local Grocery buying all the Pepsi he could.
It's been known that silicone explodes at zero gravity. We could have a mess on our hands.
But it also makes compelling television.
I don't care about the "Eat steak and win a chance to go to Emmy's so see a bunch of self-centered pretty people do stuff", or "Eat Nachos and meet Dr. Phil", or even "Win a computer by kissing the ass fo the 'Dude, you're getting a Dell' guy!"
;). (Though a mouse in zero-gee would be interesting - better get the optical out for the trip....)
But this - I would actually find some way to chug-a-lug the fowl battery acid combination they call "cola" for a chance to go into space. If for no other reason than I can take a pee in zero-gee. And puke from the nausea.
But damn - wouldn't that be something to tell my kids. Daddy took a pee in space. Then played Warcraft III on how Powerbook just because he could
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Somebody in the 350 club wins?
This is lame. The russians should have to, at least, split the profits with other countries participating in the ISS (commensurate with their financial obligation).
Either that, or make them stay in their capsule.
By a long run! Not to mention the oter coder fuel they make, Mountain Dew!
Since the whole idea came about because of Lance's failed bid, I think it would be a pleasant surprise if the winner donated their ticket to him. (Now, if we can just arrange for it to be a one-way ticket.)
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
What's next, drink Pepsi and win a trip to you local brothel.. That would definately make it better..
If I do, I think my life savings may be already spent...
I use Skyway Soap because.....
whatever happened to that contest, anyway?
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
A ride on the Russian Soyuz space taxi?
This could easily turn into "Pepsi -- burning all the way down."
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.
I hope N*Sync isn't the corporate sponsor.... otherwise you can give up now
Hopefully they'll use this promotion to joyfully announce the discontinuation of "Pepsi Blue."
Incidentally, I have found Pepsi Blue to be useful for removing stains from my toilet bowl, and not much else. It is certainly unfit for human consumption.
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
I'd rather have a date with Britney Spears than a ride on some russian space jelopy. Could you reconsider Pepsi?
It sounds like that "Lance Bass" kid I keep reading about is gonna be drinking a loooooot of Pepsi in the near future.
there's no way in hell they'd actually front the money to do this. since the whole topic of going to space in a russian ship has been all over the news lately, they're just throwing this idea out there to get it talked about on every fucking news broadcasting. -nullvalue www.bbsmates.com
"Life is short, Life is shit, and soon it will be over..." -kith
Lance Bass is going to buy a million cans so he can get the Golden Ticket.
----
"Those who quote others are more likely to one day be quoted" -Tom Planter
After checking out this list of ads I was only wondering which firm would do it first.
Googlefight "Slashdot Troll" against "BSD is dying" 303:229. BSD thus cant die.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Sounds like Pepsi's grasping at straws for marketing ideas. *PUN!* Is the soft drink industry that hard up for the next big thing in slogans? "Drink Pepsi, go to space?" What's next, Coke lets you dock the shuttle with something? Then what? Pepsi lets you land it?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
But, for a chance to go into space and return in one piece, why not drink a Pepsi.
Fight Spammers!
i guess now that Lance Bass is out of the way, Britney Spears wants a crack at true (not just near-) weightlessness? ;)
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Coke adds life!
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Money doesn't buy you friends.
It's so stupid. They can spend as much money as they like on advertising, but that's not going to change people's taste.
When given an equal choice, I'm still going to buy Coke rather than Pepsi.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Sounds like an overweight pepsi drinker will win the prize but won't be able to go because they won't be physically fit to travel into space.
How are they going to guarntee that if you win you really get to go? There are physical standards that must be met to travel into space.
Priceless event. going into space is a priceless event in our lifetimes. Unless you are an astronaut, you will never going to be able to orbit the earth from way up above. Space travel has shown to be just simply not a possibility to us normal people.
You can always make more money, but you might never get the chance to goto space.
this is just about pepsi sponsoring a "reality show" who's winner would go to space. So, it's not like it's buy a 12pack of pepsi, and you might be the lucky winner.
The title of the story is misleading.
Either way, like the article said, Coke did the same thing with American Idol, It's going to be overated bulshit, so while you watch the show, you'll be bombarded with Pepsi Ads.
But the thought that Pepsi will be in space for the astronauts kinda sucks. Everyone knows, Coke rules.
Seriously tho, are the astro/cosmo nauts even allowed to drink soda up in space or while their training ? just wondering considering how bad cola is anyway.
Maybe they'll promote powerade or whatever "energy" drink Pepsi Owns.
A disappointed TV viewer had sued Pepsico for failure to provide the Harrier jet he thought he had won in the soft drink company's "Pepsi Stuff" ad campaign. The TV commercials in the campaign featured various apparel and leisure items that could be obtained in exchange for Pepsi Points. The close of one commercial showed a teenager arriving at school in a Harrier Jet with a Pepsi logo on it and offered the jet for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. Leonard accumulated 15 actual Pepsi Points and submitted them with a check for $700,008.50 to purchase the balance of Pepsi Points he needed for the Harrier Jet. But, he did not receive the jet. He's now suing Pepsi for fraud, deceptive advertising and breach of contract. Pepsi says the lawsuit is frivolous.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
...what happens when the winner is a 300 lb, 2 packs a day, budweiser drinker?
I think this is a brilliant idea, we can see what the impact of YEARS of drinking soda (pop) has on a person when they get into space. It is not a hidden fact that Soda (pop) is not the most healthy drink in the world and I would like to see what happens when you take one of those kids that resemble the Simpsons' Comic Shop Owner and throw him into a low-G environment. Someone go out and get the FDA's report on soda and post it as a reply so we can see what potential health problems will get aggrivated by the trip. BOOYAH!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Perhaps this is just a sneaky way for Britney to give her boyfriend a non-engagement present, because all the other boy-band members are doing it?
Remaining Anonymous so that my friends don't know that I searched the web for Britney Spears.
- AC
Son: "Daddy, I want a Pepsi!"
Dad: "You already drank all the Pepsi."
Son: "No, I need to drink more Pepsi!."
Dad: "Why son?"
Son: "I want to fly in a spaceship just like a Jedi."
"As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for sport." - William Shakespeare, King Lear
The fact that pepsi have $20 million to piss away hiring Britney Spears and Micheal Jackson and sending people to space sends the message to me loud and clear that their prices are WAY to high. Cokes prices are the same and assume their profit margins are similar but the fact that they don't throw in our faces the fact that they are bending us over and anally raping us makes me much more inclined to buy their product. In addition to the fact that I enjoy coke more than pepsi and RC more than both.
seems to me that the russian space program is a bit dangerous these days. I wonder what kind of deal pepsi swung with the russian mob to get a few seats on the space taxi (driver carries less than $20 in cash...)
I'm sticking with coke- better chance of survival
you dont actaully have to DRINK the pepsi...
No way, no how. I don't think I'm ready to trust my life to a space program that has to cowtow to B-List celebrities to pay the rent.
Plus, I've seen too much media coverage about Russian technology in action. Think submarines, chernobyls, satellites, space stations, political ideologies.
No thanks, Pepsi. I'll take my chances with the giant slingshot I'm building in my backyard.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hmmm...drink a Pepsi, go into space. I'm just not sure it's worth it.
Quoth Homer: Ewwwww! I'll take the clam juice.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Now Pepsi wants to up the anti with one of the biggest contests ever including a realty TV show. I know the odds of anything going wrong are low (I'd go if I won) but still this sounds like a bit of a gamble on Pepsi's part.
Pepsi tastes like dish soap. Diet pepsi is even worse.
If you're going to load up your body with so much sugar that you go blind, at least make it taste good in the process.
Remember, it's carbonated, and the pressure will drop. ;)
When Lance and his handlers first started getting cold feet over his ride with the Russians, NASA suddenly realized that without a tourist on board the RSA might not have enough cash on hand to launch the mission! So they quietly dropped their opposition.
Wonder what is going to happen now that Mr. Lance has checked out? Not being able to fund a resupply mission is a bit of bad news I would think. Maybe they could send 4 or 5 Progress instead and see if any hit.
sPh
It's the choice for the next generation, not for us... It has to wait for the right stardate :)
If so ... this'll be quite a challenging contest
=0)
Maybe Pepsi is better than Coke?
Nope, You don't order a Jack and Pepsi for a reason. And that's all I have to say.
I wonder just how much of an effect these sorts of promotions have on sales. I've never once thought, "No, I think I'll drink Pepsi this time - I might win a widget!" I probably wouldn't start drinking Pepsi all of the sudden were the promotion going on - IMO, the statistics don't support the sacrifice that switching soft drink brands would be...
Brandon
since they pay britney spears a LOT of cash, apparently. how about a "drink pepsi, get laid (by teen sensation)" promotion.
only THEN, will pepsi be better than coke. and only until you see the "morning after" spears.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
When was the last time you heard someone order a "Jim Beam & Pepsi", "Rum & Pepsi" or "Long Island Iced Pepsi"? Yeeech! Coke just makes alcohol all that much better.
... and the winner is ... Lance Bass, who will now shill for Pepsi for the rest of his life!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
I've wanted to go to space my whole life, but at puberty those dreams went out the window.
I am 6'4", and have been told repeatedly that they just don't make spacesuits or shuttles for seating people taller than 5'11". That and I can't see so good, but I imagine for the cosmo-tourist, vision doesn't matter.
Anybody know if this height limit is still true?
I know I still can't be a fighter pilot, so I didn't get too hepped when Pepsi had the contest for the MIG.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
As usual there is an open source answer to these corporate theives!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Do you really trust this promotion after the debacle with the Harrier jet they offered in the Pepsi Points promotion a few years back? Some kid got investors to give him money (you could buy points for a $1:1 point ratio) and when he had the 10 million points or whatever it took Pepsi refused. They had made the mistake of offering something they could not deliver.
Now if they were to shoot N'Sync and Britney Spears into a degenerating orbit around Mars or something.. sure, I'd buy it by the truck load. =)
Sacrilege! You'd sell your soul for a measly spaceship ride?
:)
You'd think if they were making the space program the center of their marketting campaign, that they would repackage the stuff into one of those plastic squeeze-bottles that astronauts use to imbibe while in zero-gee. I can see the newest teen craze now - drink Pepsi from a squirt bottle, while dressed in your moon boots, while executing a skateboarding move that effectively duplicates zero-gee conditions for 1/100th of a second!
In theory, the more you drink pepsi, the more of a chance you have to win. And we all know the us geeks drink the most caffine carbonated beverages. Do you think the Ruskies would want a fat geeks into space? Also it would make a nice title for their show; Fat Geeks in Space. You heard it here first folks :)
Mod: +4 Funny, +2 off topic, +3 Interesting
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
and at no cost to them.
A bargain!
Kevin
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in" O. Nash
The irony is that after buying all that Pepsi, he'll be Too Fat For Space.
There's still hope. Everybody pray for Lance!
Considering PizzaHut (at the time a PepsiCo subsiderary) was the first to slap their logo to the side of a space-bound rocket (a Russian one btw), this doesn't suprise me in the least.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Let's hope this doesn't turn out like Pepsi's Harrier Jet commercial
Pepsi's $35 mil promotion just ended up costing $55 Mil. It'd probably be cheaper for Pepsi to buy a congressman to exempt you for 1 year from income taxes.
When we are exploring space (optimism!) you'll have Coke sending ships round making stars go nova so Earth's night sky permanently (depending on position of course) has the Coke logo on display...
Don't you just love comedy scifi books. Also remember, infinity welcomes careful drivers ;-)
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
If you drink a couple of Pepsi's real fast, you just may allow yourself to leave the ground on occasion.
Mix in a few quicky burritos into the meal, and start the countdown.....
Table-ized A.I.
Buy a million pepsi's get a night with Brittny.
this is like the golden ticket in willy wonka and the chocolate factory.
how many hundreds of cans of pepsi did you buy today?
They'll have to send somebody along on the commercial moon mission just to stay ahead.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Boy, I wonder which company might be a rival of Pepsi?!
the person that wins this thing is most likely to drink large amounts of pepsi? Chances are they will be fatter than me, and I am in no condition for space travel. Wonder if they will put the winner on a year long diet or something. Still gonna stick with the dew though...
Is Britney coming? Hmmm... floating in zero-G... must grab something for stability...
Anybody want a peanut?
Expect:
If you drink _________, you could be helping
the terrorists.
Pppppplllleeeeaaaassssseeeee, pass me a joint,
Woot
Does it strike anyone else that the people least likely to be fit enough to travel to space are also the ones who guzzle tons of soft drinks?
And yes, I almost certainly fit into that group too.
Why shouldn't they. Maybe if everybody supported it, we could send Britney to space. Then, if somebody can do some creative hacking on the airlocks, we can eject her at some appropriate moment and then "bye bye Britney. "
In a side note: this is an interesting attention-grabber by pepsi, if it doesn't work I suppose they could up their presense in "the sims" Oops, we did it again!- phorm
...Coke will be trying to top that with a "Win a Position as a UN Weapons Inspector and go to Iraq" contest.
Ever since that Boy Band Fruit Loop Lance Bass tried to hitch a ride with the Ruskies, my interest in the Space Program has been nullified (I had my interest all but killed after the Challenger disaster, that sealed the deal). Only way I'll go into space now is if we make a serious attempt to colonize the Moon, and we all know that Everyone Is Mars Crazy...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Ordinary civilians have no place taking joyrides in space. Not yet.
Maybe it's not quite the same a contest to ride with a test pilot on an experimental aircraft, but it's not like boarding an airliner. Or like the contest in Heinlein's (fictional) "Have Space Suit, Will Travel," which was for a trip on an established commercial tourist route.
I can still remember the Challenger disaster. What a shame. And what hubris, taking a schoolteacher along for a ride, so millions of kids could watch the Shuttle explode on TV in real time...
I hope the Hayden Planetarium still has the list I signed when I was a kid, the list of people interested in being on the first passenger trip to the Moon. But I'm not entering this Pepsi contest.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
And here's a link (alas, no warranties, re: reliability).
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Coke has had the lead for as long as I've been alive (19+). A ride on the Soyuz will cost them a real bundle, so they must be depending on making enough sales that they'll recoup their costs, while long term income is increased by new regulars.
What's this Submit thingy do?
Seriously, anyone who does go into space has to be in VERY good shape. Few Americans, myself included fit into that definition at all.
At the very least, most people, again myself included I am ashamed to admit, would have to lose weight and do some hard core working out to prepare themselves for the effects of blast off, weightlessness for several days, and the sudden return to Earth. Many astronauts far fitter than most of us need carried off the shuttles after spending only a week or two in space.
Now for the real irony. To get the contestant physically fit for their trip, they would likely have to STOP drinking pop for the duration of the training and trip, meaning you likely wouldn't see someone chugging a dew upside down on the space station or a Russian rocket.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
The only reason Coke has a better market share is due to world war ii contract and the sheep mindset of the consumers.
when i was living in japan a few years ago, suntory (pepsi's japan distributor) tries to up pepsi's market share with a "trip to space" contest. i was all excited until i found out the "winner" would still have to shell out some dough, and it was a suborbital flight, during most of which one would be presumably stuck to the chair. info about the contest seems pretty hard to find on the web.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I mean, the majority of people who drink soft drinks like Pepsi (myself included) would probably not pass any physical standards required to go to space... Unless those wheels are also greased by some money. Still, I don't think Pepsi would like to show the world how their contest winner probably died of a heart attack on launch or reentry.
I recall early NASA attempts to bring soda into space. Evidently, straight up carbonated beverages will make the average human very sick in zero-G.
I wonder if you'll hear about that in the Pepsi commercials...
They already ripped someone off this way in the past!
fifth sigma, inc.
"Star's space bid officially grounded."
He'll just have to drink a helluva lot of Pepsi.
:wq
Obviously, you want cash not crash.
It could be kind of humorous, actually, the kind of people who will think they're cut out for space flight just because they drink soda.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
poopsie and kok both for defacing beautiful rock formations with crappy and tasteles advertisements in extreme north india and ruining the environment. they'll think twice now dirty creeps.
The chances of you winning that trip to space, even you tubby software engineers that drink a gallon of soda a day, is so slim as to be meaningless. So just drink whatever you want. At least coke has a little acidic bite to it, wheras pepsi is just disgustingly sweet and syrupy. Kind of like Brittney Spears, again.
Coke tastes better than Pepsi (way better). Dr. Pepper is better than both.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
So much of celebrity endorsements, commercial contracts, and sweepstakes, because the fact remains that most people prefer the taste of coke over Pepsi. Just look at any of the big chains, the major ones: McDonald's. Burger King, and Wendy's all serve coke. The chains that serve Pepsi are either owned by Pepsi or are given significant incentives to purchase it. No restaurant would ever choose Pepsi if Pepsi and Coke were offered at the same price.
I don't mean to get OT here, but i've seen a few post here and there about the profit margins pepsi and coke enjoy, so the question bears to mind, what is their profit margin?
Considering soda is nothing more than water with carbonation, sugar, caffiene, and caramel coloring, and the fact that these companies buy the ingredients in commodity sized lots, the profit margin must be tremendous.
Funny how coke can sell Aquafina (water) for the same price as coke. Must be a cash cow for them.
Here in San Jose CA the price for a 20oz bottle of coke is around $1.20 at most 7-11's, gas stations ect.
I am going to drink a helluva lot of pepsi (and probably Mountain Dew) I already drink over 2 liters a day average. So a little more won't hurt. But I am hoping to win AND be able to sue, because there is no warning label on the bottles that my teeth may all rot and fall out.
I smell cash and a ride to the space station, which is will work out great because the mushy astronaut food will be all I can eat with out teeth.
Pepsi may send you to outer space, but coke gets you even higher!
example.org - powered by Linux!
This is a pretty sad commentary on the state of TV programming. Is this all American culture has to offer anymore?
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. -G.K. Chesterton
Lance Bass of the pop band 'Nsync from the crew earlier this month. The performer had made a bid to go up on the Soyuz on Oct. 28, financed by $20 million in corporate sponsorships -- including one unnamed soft-drink company said to be Pepsi.
One Pepsi bottler said the idea sprouted from Mr. Bass' failed bid
Umm... we kinda like got this like extra ticket to um like go into like "outer-space" man... and like um we kinda like um thought that ah you um customers um would like to um you know, maybe...See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
OK, so if I switch from Red Bull, Bawls, Whoopass and Skyrocket Syrup to Pepsi, I would have to drink...
(Quick Math)
245 cans a day to keep up my caffeine intake.
I think that will give me an edge.
Space, Here I Come!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Why not send Brittany or Michael J up with the winner, with the promise of some "TV-like things" (pick one, depending on who you get).
Lets see ...
... for free!
1 Space ride, $35,000,000
70,000,000 cans of Pepsi (@ $0.50 each), $35,000,000
Wow! That is a TON of Pepsi!!
That's like giving one out of every three people (men, women, & children) in the United States a can of Pepsi
And how many of those people receiving a free can of Pepsi would throw it in the trash? (in favor of Coke)
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Great, I just gained 5lbs trying to win a Viper on the Mt Dew contest! Might as well get bigger pants now that I have a chance to go to space! TFPIC
seg fault
The SMS company Zed used to have a contest with a space trip as a grand prize. Unfortunately that link doesn't seem to work any more, but the contest is mentioned at least here, here and here.
I don't know if anyone actually won the prize, though.
...to get me to actually drink Pepsi.
They can call me once they start offering rights to human-inhabitable planets. Then... maybe. But I'm still not going to like it.
Give me my Coca-Cola any day.
A guy that looks like the "Comic-store guy" from the Simpsons wins and sues Pepsi for not going to space.
BTW, I'd also rather take the 38 million $....
As a side note, the judge in the Pepsi Harrier case, Kimba Wood, was Clinton's second AG nominee. She also had to withdraw because of a "Nannygate" problem. Clinton then nominated Reno.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Will have to drink a lot of Pepsi now to make up for the money he couldn't pay for his training.
The contest announcement can still be seen here.
you won't win.
SODA = Water + sugar + junk that makes you teeth go away(and remove the rust off of nails) + shiny bottle ..
what about a good glass of grapegruit juice? (better than caffeine! ;-)
I'll go if I get to push one of them out of the airlock and watch their (silicone / children's skin, respectively) augmented body twirl, freeze and explode.
That would almost be as sweet as Pepsi.
Do they pay for you to be off of work for 6 months so you can go for the training? My wife probably wouldn't let me go anyway :(
Pepsi is better than coke in my opinion. Coke just leaves (to be scientific) an ikky aftertaste. And, I saw it mentioned somewhere else...Aquafina is owned by Pepsi, not coke. Which is far better bottle water than Dasani, the coke brand. I mean, Dasani puts Sodium Bicarbonate in their water...I just want water damnit!
Why dont they take Britney, Lance Bass and the rest of N'Sync put them aboard the Soyuz and rig it for a fatal accident. 1000000 geeks would be really thankful for that.
;-)
Feeling cynical today
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
"When deep space exploration ramps up, it will be corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet
Starbucks."
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/sci/sol/experts/helen /page1.htmr man.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/sha
Helen Sharman won a contest to ride soyuz to Mir. It turned out that the contest operators didn't have the cash, but the russians sent her anyway. They weren't as broke at the time. She wasn't the first paid passenger either, that was a japanese journalist (http://www.astronautix.com/astros/akiyama.htm)
Note that you don't just get the lucky bottle cap and go. You get a lucky bottle cap, you go to star city for 6 months, train, learn russian and if you are fit enough and meet whatever other criteria, then you go.
Even if zero G doesn't turn you on, riding a hopped up 1950s ICBM into orbit has to be the best f***ing rollercoaster ride ever. Sign me up.
I heard that if you purchase Diet Rite they'll give you a ride on the marketing VP's Huffy. Choices, choices...
- DDT
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
I heard about this when I was in Australia, that was 1999, Pepsi had the ad about it on TV as well, but I don't know whatever happened to it. Perhaps they have "In year 2050" in really small print.
Any Australian want to back up this story?
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I'd be willing to bet if I won my boss wouldn't give me the time off,
and even if he did my wife would stop me.
(We just and a baby. Can you say mood swings?!)
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
and it's because of all of those annoying commercials (Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, that little annoying girl, all the Dew commercials)...I don't remember any commercials from Coke that I hate...too bad I'm addicted to Mountain Dew
I submitted this at 7am this morning, and got rejected. Fun. ANYHOW: Pepsi-Cola is negotiating a deal for what could be one of the highest-profile promotions in marketing history: a $35 million program that would award the winner a ticket to ride on the Russian Soyuz space shuttle, says Advertising Age. If it reaches agreement on buying a seat on the rocket, the soft drink giant would back the program with a powerhouse marketing budget for plans that include a reality TV show with contestants competing to win the trip to space. Details are being worked out for the promotion, expected to begin in summer 2003 and run through the following year. Pepsi would pay about $15 million for the rights to the ticket and another $10 million to $20 million to promote the trip.
Ever Onward, Forward Bound
I believe you are required to pay taxes on contest winning (at least in the US). SO now someone will win a trip to space and a $1.2 million debt to the IRS.
Are we sure they're thinking of REALLY offering a ride on the taxi, or is this going to end like that Pepsi thing?
--- http://foo.ca
I've always thought NASA should hold a raffle as a fund raiser. First prize, a trip to space. I'd shell out $10 for a shot at a shuttle ride, and I sincerely doubt that I'm the only one.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Don't even joke about pepsi being better than Coke!
Pepsi has always been better than Coke. Didn't you ever hear of the Pepsi Challenge? Sammy Sosa scientifically proved it.
"Maybe Pepsi is better than Coke?"
Maybe Pepsi is ON coke ???
"Mr. President, our spies have learned that the Russians are sending a mission to the Moon to paint it red. What should we do about it?"
:p
"Er, that's all right, don't worry about it."
Next day:
"Mr. President, the Russians are in orbit around the Moon and started painting it!!"
"C'mon, calm down please. It's all right, stop worrying."
Next day:
"Mr. President! The Moon is all red now!!! What do we dooo???"
"Ah, Jesus, I told you to calm down please. I've just sent a shuttle to write Coca Cola on it."
Of course Pepsi is better_than_coke captain dummynuts.
Pepsi ran commercials several years ago for a contest in which the grand prize was a trip in space ("uchuu no tabi")
The ad ended with the squeeky female voiceover saying "honto desu!" ("It's true!")
Never found out what happened to the contest as I moved to boring Canada where the first prize in a contest would be weekend with a moose.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I can see the slogan now: "Drink Pepsi, Get High." .. though Coke would be better for that slogan.
Do you share your marijuana?
Thanks and have a nice day.
The last thing I need is more reality TV. But maybe 'the pepsi space challenge' could compete against 'opening the treasure vaults of the pyramids', 'survior', and 'big brother' so I would know for certain that I'm not wasting my time by turning on the TV.
The article has some industry expert saying "There's not enough danger, not enough novelty. ... It's not like people can run around a space ship and fornicate or kill each other or do other things they do on TV."
If they want danger maybe they could try:
1)Balloon ride with Steve Fawcett,
2)Field trip with the Crocodile Hunter,
3)Weekend at Neverland
1. Announce through the usual marketing and promotions channels that your company (or the one you represent) is *thinking* of performing an outrageous stunt that no one has undertaken previously.
2. Wait for the news to propogate to various news agencies, then to web/television/radio/print and finally down to community level news sites or groups.
3. Sit back and drink your latte before undertaking the next marketing campaign.
>Among its plans: a reality TV show with contestants competing to win a trip to space.
And the winner takes a ride in the wonkavator!
-=sig=-
I think I'd rather have a ride on Brittney Spears instead. :)
Vonnegut predicted this! There was a pretty good movie years ago called "Between Time and Timbuktu", a Vonnegut screenplay where the winner of a Tang contest (Tang is a powdered orange drink from ancient times) gets a ride to the moon. There is a rounding error (or maybe they used metric instead of English or vice versa - no wait, that really happened - he predicted that too!), the trajectory is miscalculated, they miss the moon and go off into uncharted territory. Most of the movie is about the planets they visit on their journey, civilizations much like ours but where say political correctness has been taken to a logical absurdity.
will someone send Raster and the whole enlightenment team into space..I like to see mej strapped to the rocket myself....on a one way ticket to the sun...thanks
Well, i guess Coke has already had an promotion on the Mars,and i bet those aliens on that planet must like it very much!
Prediction: Lance Bass starts buying Pepsi in trailer load quantities, hoping to win.... :)
This reminds me of an old sci-fi book, which I think was called "The Whole Ball of Wax" (I have forgotten the author's name and an Amazon and Google search got me nowhere). The book was set sometime in the late 20th century (written in the 1960s), when the "constellation Pepsi-Cola wheeled in the sky" -- supposedly Pepsi had made an artificial constellation out of satellites equipped with huge mirrors. The story also had a forerunner of virtual reality (and very much like Tekwar from William Shatner), where people donned a headset to experience recorded sensations. It also oddly echoed (foresaw?) a lot of things about society in America today, even if a lot of the details were wrong (vidphones and that sort of thing).
I last read the book years ago -- borrowed it from my aunt and uncle about 20 years ago -- but have no idea if the book is still available anywhere. Even when I borrowed it, it was old...
I also had to think of one old Pepsi commercial from the 1980s. Even as a diehard Coke and RC drinker, I was still amused by it: in the commercial, you see a bunch of students from the distant future being led around an archaeological dig by a professor; the "excavation" is of a 20th century family home. The prof rattles on about how rare it is to find a house from this era totally intact, and he enthusiastically shows an "ancient" TV set, stereo, etc. (all the while explaining to the students what they were for, while you see the students sipping from Pepsi cans).
At the end, a student spots a glass thing in the dirt, picks it up and shows it to the prof, asking, "Hey, Professor, what's this?"
Turns out to be a 16 oz. Coke bottle. The prof looks totally dumbfounded and murmurs, "I have no idea..."
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Just found the name: "The Big Ball of Wax: A Story of Tomorrow's Happy World", by Shepherd Mead, written before 1954. Apparently it's been out of print for ages. *sigh*
FWIW some people apparently claim that this book is the origin of the saying "the whole ball of wax" (cf. http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-who5.htm). Go figure.
Anyway...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Does this work on the theory that if you consume enough Pepsi quickly enough, then the resulting gas will propel you into outer space automatically?
--
Employing incompetence: $35/h
Fixing the resulting mistakes: $1000's
Employing me: Priceless
and you wouldn't need a ride on the Russian space taxi.
Where's the robot's, flying cars, videophones (never will there be widespread video phones), and other such gadgets that were supposed to happen from fifty years ago?
PC's have invaded like no other, and I don't want to say that we haven't made progress, cause we have.
But space travel will not happen in our lifetime. Sorry, you can hope and dream all you want, but only a handful of people will have made it into space by the time that you are old and grey.
Mass space transportation requires either a massive leap in technology, or a changing of the sacrifices that we are willing to make to get there.
if you don't want to goto space, then what are you doing on /. This is news for nerds, not news for people who want a yacht. ;p
Nasty stuff for nasty people.
Yeah, life is real safe. No use taking risks just for fun and adventure - better to die in a nursing home at age 99!
sPh
So-many pepsi points, and you could have a harrier. THat was what they said on the commercial (or rather, showed a picture of it, and then showed a # of pepsi points)
A gentlemen got some investors together, gathered enough cash to get the required number of pepsi points (It was around $300,000 I think.... it was low, way, way less than what a harrier would cost, if you could even buy one)
Then he went to pepsi and asked for his jumpjet.
They said no.
He sued them.
He lost.
The judge said it was an OBVIOUS joke and that is was absurd for him to think he would actually get a 10 million dollar military fighter jet for buying pepsi stuff.
The judge said that any reasonable person would realize it was a joke, therefore, it was not false advertising.
Besides, he never bought the pepsi stuff in the first place.
Or something rather like that.
What happens to a can of Pepsi in space?
When it is opened?
When you mix it with Jack?
How does space affect intoxication?
When I'm intoxicated in space will I:
a- be more right?
b- have to relieve myself as much?
c- find that people are still just as ugly as when I am sober?
Ye gods! "Emacs rocks, vi sucks!" is nothing, compared to this flamebait!
...a chalanger repeat would have a tremendously negative impact on pepsi...and considering the age/complexity of everything in these space programs, I still don't think that space travel should be thought of as an expensive flight on a jumbo jet, as people seem to think these days.
SPAM
Coke - Pepsi
What's the difference?
Pepsi and Coke already flew on the shuttle. STS51-F according to Loren Acton in the book Space Shuttle the First 20 Years. From the book, "... we did our test in space. The red team did the Pepsi, and the blue team-we were divide into shifts-did the Coke. We took the still photographs, and we showed the logo. And indeed, the Coke can dispense soda kind of like what we're used to drinking on Earth. And the Pepsi can dispensed soda filled with bubbles-fun to play with in zero-g, but not very drinkable."
Earlier he listed for training. "The Pepsi can, when it showed up, looked like a shaving cream can. In fact, the Pepsi logo was just stuck on a paper wrapper, and when we peeled if off, indeed it was just a shaving cream can. It still had the shaving cream logo on it. Pepsi understood that this had nothing whatsoever to do with soda in space. It had to do with PR."
I'd rather take the cash, keep $20 mil, and use the rest to send up my own satelite.
You do, however, have a wonderful User #
Fishing for compliments or what?