Space Shot

Don’t you love those PR brainstorm sessions where the high-energy facilitator, in an effort to get the creative juices flowing, proclaims at the outset: “No Negatives!” “Anything Goes!” “Think Out of the Box!” “No Idea is a Bad Idea!” Geesh.

I remember one such session some years ago for Coke USA. I thought to myself, “Perhaps they’d go for it this time?” I waited patiently so as to not squash the unwashed idea of the assistant account executive.

The moment finally came and I blurted out: “Why don’t we project the Coca-Cola logo onto the face of a full moon???” Huge pregnant pause from my supposed friends and colleagues. A couple of harumphs, and the facilitator, in a moment of kindness, tasked me to undertake a feasibility study.

Today, NASA is considering a request by a golf club manufacturer to allow a Russian cosmonaut to tee off from the space station. John Daly, step off the tee box and grab a Tang! This will be the longest drive in the history of…well, in history!

Element 21 Golf paid the Russian space agency “an undisclosed amount…to publicize its new line of golf clubs and commemorate the 35th anniversary of the time astronaut Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission.”

Great idea, especially if NASA agrees. As far as seeing the Coke logo anytime soon on the moon, I was very close to finding a company that said it had the technology to make it happen. The idea fizzled in Atlanta, so I guess I’ll take a mulligan to the next round.

PR golf
public relations NASA