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Pepsi Drops Plans To Use Artificial Constellation To Promote An Energy Drink (spacenews.com)
Just days after Pepsi announced that it would advertise its products in space using a Russian startup, the company now says it will no longer pursue the plans, avoiding what likely would have resulted in significant public criticism. Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from SpaceNews: The publication Futurism reported April 13 that PepsiCo's Russian subsidiary was working with a startup there called StartRocket to advertise an energy drink called "Adrenaline Rush" using satellites. The company has proposed flying a set of small satellites in formation, reflecting sunlight with Mylar sails to create logos or other advertising messages visible from the ground after sunset and before sunrise.
PepsiCo's headquarters in the United States has shot down the idea. "We can confirm StartRocket performed an exploratory test for stratosphere advertisements using the Adrenaline GameChangers logo," a company spokesperson told SpaceNews April 15. "This was a one-time event; we have no further plans to test or commercially use this technology at this time." The company didn't elaborate on the "exploratory test for stratosphere advertisements," but it appears to refer to a high-altitude balloon test of the technology that StartRocket says on its website it planned to carry out in April in cooperation with Russia's Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech. "People have a visceral dislike of space-based advertising," adds schwit1.
PepsiCo's headquarters in the United States has shot down the idea. "We can confirm StartRocket performed an exploratory test for stratosphere advertisements using the Adrenaline GameChangers logo," a company spokesperson told SpaceNews April 15. "This was a one-time event; we have no further plans to test or commercially use this technology at this time." The company didn't elaborate on the "exploratory test for stratosphere advertisements," but it appears to refer to a high-altitude balloon test of the technology that StartRocket says on its website it planned to carry out in April in cooperation with Russia's Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech. "People have a visceral dislike of space-based advertising," adds schwit1.
All of our complaining worked! Now let's go celebrate with a nice cold Pepsi!
"Hey look!! We're So Responsive We Dropped The Idea!!"
Yay Pepsi. Sorta like someone offers to poop on your living room carpet, then says they must be awesome people because they didn't when you asked them not to.
Yay Pepsi. Or something.
They remembered the Kendal Jenner debacle.
with daily ads.
I suppose it is better than Project A119(detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon).
L'Idiot
Suck my balls, Beau!
Get twice the PR for the price of a press release.
As marketing, a genius move. As an actual human being, one step away from being a psychopat who uses NLP to program women into letting him rape them in the ass cause then daddy will love them.
As a capitalist, just another day of the week.
A total waste of resources for something that is unhealthy anyway.
Corporatism != Free Market
Pepsi gets ads for "considering" space ads. Pepsi gets ads for "withdrawing" space ads. Pepsi gets several news cycles for cheap. Don't fall for the obviously false narrative.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Anyone else think this the whole time?
People have a visceral dislike of space-based advertising," adds schwit1.
No, people have a visceral dislike of ANY advertising - and the more obnoxious and unavoidable, the more they hate it.
In a way, I wish Pepsi had gone through with their stupid plan: it might have provoked a real backlash against the ubiquitous brain pollution that is advertising. People bear with it because of things like Adblock on the internet, fast-forward on TV boxes, and looking the other way on the road. But there's no avoiding a disfigured night sky.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on tv and radio...and in magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree.
Great job Pepsi!
NOW!!
It occurs to me that the overall shape of the 100 meter International Space Station can be seen with binoculars, resting atop one's car.
At the same altitude, and ten times that distance, 1km, a shape could be visible to the naked eye. (Cubesats 1km apart, each holding a mylar sail). At 1km distance between, they'd orbit almost as if it was one object. In fact, they could be attached with mylar coated tethers.
At an altitude lower than IIS, they could be slightly closer together, or appear larger.
It has become standard procedure for Indulgence seeking corporations to make a contribution to a charity that epitomizes the principal to which they are now committed. I suggest Pepsi might want to give the International Dark-Sky Society the same amount of money they paid for the balloon "demonstration" they don't plan to repeat. I was just trying to think of a way to reduce the nagging feeling that I still need to forgo that cool, wet, sparkling Pepsi taste.
to bombard you with commercials and ad's until you cannot look away.
this was just too much at once, is all.
To be fair to the maligned megacorp, they said none of that, you were the one who said it all. They released a simple purely factual statement about their decision, in response to inquiries. They did not launch a new advertising campaign about their responsible choices or make any attempt to turn their decision into a marketing technique.
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Life imitates art, mostly 'cos companies are lazy and steal ideas no matter how nuts they are. Red Dwarf, the books not the show, the reason Kryten is really where he is was because of the leading cola company was sending stars super-nova in order to write a slogan across the sky that would be seen night and day. I bet Naylor is pissing himself laughing at this story.
"People have a visceral dislike of space-based advertising"
People have a visceral dislike of ANY advertising. Space-based just makes it that extra little bit more aggravating.
I went to Pepsi's website and submitted a message telling them I won't do business anymore with any of their companies if they do this. They listen to people who vote with their money, they really do.
It would be truly tragic if they launched these satellites and someone were able to brick them, hack them to display a space dick, or send them burning into the atmosphere.
...where there was plans to launch an orbital billboard which would display a symbol that was to be be associated with various companies and brands. It would have been made of a very thin material and once in orbit, unfurreled like a sail. This pissed a lot of people off, and the project never went anywhere.
Looks like nobody learned their lesson the first time around, and scince now they want to send a giant electronic space sign, expect to see penises, swastikas, and everything else offensive appear in the night sky once this gets hacked