“Out of this World” Marketing: #AYearInSpace

Houston, he’s landed.

Yesterday, Scott Kelly, the first American astronaut to spend almost an entire year in space, landed safely in Kazakhstan to cheers from his fellow earthlings (Farey-Jones, 2016). Kelly, who spent the last 340 days of his life in orbit far away from his home, and home planet, has done a remarkable job documenting and sharing his rare journey with the rest of us (Grush, 2016).

Think your Instagram game is strong? Chances are it doesn’t stack up even close to Kelly’s, who now has 946,000 followers, and has posted over 788 “out of this world” images of life from the space station to the hashtag #YearinSpace.

Check out some of them here: https://www.instagram.com/stationcdrkelly/?hl=en

But apart from the real reason why Kelly was in space – to conduct research and learn about the effects on the human body after a prolonged period away from Earth – brands are recognizing the marketing opportunity that comes with attaching to an international superstar astronaut (Hughes, 2016). Time Magazine, for instance, has created an entire documentary series on the astronaut’s journey called, “A Year in Space,” which airs Wednesday, March 2^nd at 8pm on PBS (Howell, 2016).

Lexus, in partnership with Time, has leveraged Kelly’s safe landing on March 1st to hype up the safety of its latest Lexus RX model. The ad describes the car as “the official luxury crossover of getting home safe,” and the voiceover says: “While others keep our astronauts safe, we’ll help take care of our future astronauts” (Farey-Jones, 2016).

Take a look at the ad here:

Lexus’s ad, which stresses the importance of getting people home safely, utilizes the power of a universal truth – no pun intended – to pull at our heartstrings; a key marketing strategy used by some of the most successful brands (Baranowski, 2012).

What do you think about Lexus’s “Getting Home Safe” advertisement? Do you think it successfully leveraged this milestone event in its favor? Do you think it was too much of a stretch for the company to air an ad like this? Does it do a disservice to Kelly and his journey to use his story for marketing purposes?

Sources:

Baranowski, M. (2012). Seven universal truths for ensuring brand relevance. Retrieved from: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679898/7-universal-truths-for-ensuring-brand-relevance

Farey-Jones, D. (2016). Lexus celebrates astronaut Scott Kelly’s record-breaking space trip. Retrieved from: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1385942/lexus-celebrates-astronaut-scott-kellys-record-breaking-space-trip

Grush, L. (2016). Scott Kelly back on Earth: ‘It felt like I’d been up there my whole life.’ Retrieved from: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11147530/nasa-scott-kelly-first-interview-post-year-in-space 

Howell, E. (2016). Astronaut Scott Kelly’s Year in Space: Documentary Airs Tuesday. Retrieved from: http://www.space.com/32096-scott-kelly-year-in-space-documentary.html

Hughes, T. (2016) After 340 days Space Astronaut Scott Kelly back on Earth. Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/01/after-340-days-space-astronaut-scott-kelly-back-earth/81133930/