One of the most successful public relations campaigns in history,
featuring heroic astronauts, press-savvy rocket scientists, enthusiastic
reporters, deep-pocketed defense contractors, and Tang.
In July 1969, ninety-four percent of American televisions were tuned to
coverage of Apollo 11's mission to the moon. How did space exploration,
once the purview of rocket scientists, reach a larger audience than My
Three Sons? Why did a government program whose standard operating
procedure had been secrecy turn its greatest achievement into a communal
experience? In Marketing the Moon, David Meerman Scott and Richard
Jurek tell the story of one of the most successful marketing and public
relations campaigns in history: the selling of the Apollo program.
Primed by science fiction, magazine articles, and appearances by Wernher
von Braun on the "Tomorrowland" segments of the Disneyland prime time
television show, Americans were a receptive audience for NASA's
pioneering "brand journalism." Scott and Jurek describe sophisticated
efforts by NASA and its many contractors to market the facts about space
travel--through press releases, bylined articles, lavishly detailed
background materials, and fully produced radio and television
features--rather than push an agenda. American astronauts, who signed
exclusive agreements with Life magazine, became the heroic and patriotic
faces of the program. And there was some judicious product placement:
Hasselblad was the "first camera on the moon"; Sony cassette recorders
and supplies of Tang were on board the capsule; and astronauts were
equipped with the Exer-Genie personal exerciser. Everyone wanted a place
on the bandwagon.
Generously illustrated with vintage photographs, artwork, and
advertisements, many never published before, Marketing the Moon shows
that when Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind, it was a
triumph not just for American engineering and rocketry but for American
marketing and public relations.
