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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.
with daily ads.
I suppose it is better than Project A119(detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon).
L'Idiot
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!
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
Get twice the PR
Don't fool yourself; there is such a thing as bad publicity... and all that you need to achieve it is to hire the sort of morons that clearly run Pepsi.
Then again, I'm not quite sure how the soft drink industry is supposed to grow their 'Sales of Slurm' (as per Wall Street's expectations) without pulling something out of their ass.
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!
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.
I'm not a big soda drinker, but I will stop completely if they start pulling things out of their ass.
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 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.
I'm not a big soda drinker, but I will stop completely if they start pulling things out of their ass.
You're probably not in their target demographic - they'll make more money turning regular soda drinkers from Coke to Pepsi than convincing an occasional soda drinker (who is probably not even brand-loyal) to drink an occasional Pepsi, it seems unlikely that they'll turn an occasional drinker into a regular drinker. The average American drinks 45 gallons of soda a year (~16 ounces/day) -- this is who they want.
I'm not a big soda drinker, but I will stop completely if they start pulling things out of their ass.
Leela: How can you trick people into drinking something that comes out of your behind? It's disgusting.
Slurm Queen: Is it? Honey comes from a bee's behind. Milk comes from a cow's behind. And have you ever used toothpaste?
Fry: Whose behind does that come from?
Slurm Queen: You don't wanna know.
bickerdyke
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.
Milk comes from a cow's behind
That's udderly untrue.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I always thought honey was bee barf, not bee doo... (I know, it was just a Futurama quote, but when else will I get the opportunity to utilize the phrase bee barf?)
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Reminds me of the moment when Hunk (I think that was who it was) showed Allura and Coran where the milk from the ice cream they were enjoying came from.
Still need to finish the last season and a half soon and then try the original Voltron once Legendary Defender is wrapped up.
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So the quote is incorrect about both honey AND milk....
Now I really wonder where toothpaste is really coming from!
bickerdyke