One Small Step for Advertising, One Giant Leap for Mankind

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Author: Christina LeBlanc

Hover Crafts, robots and time-travel are all typical ideas of the “space age;” futuristic inventions that represented a Jetsonian fantasy world to come, but are still light years away. . . or so we thought. Turns out, this future may be closer than we imagined. Driving back to Oxy from a trip to Claremont, my friend, seemingly out of the blue, asked, “Would it be possible to advertise on the moon?” While my first reaction was to laugh at her bizarre comment, the Rolling Rock Brewery “Moonvertisting” billboard she was referring to quickly quieted my reaction of stifled guffaws.

It seems that very few people know whether or not Rolling Rock’s proposal to advertise on the moon is a mere gimmick or the newest trend in global consumerism taken to the extreme. Lately, it seems that in America, it is impossible to escape the bombardment of slogans, images and headlines demanding to be desired or demanding to be had. But with the establishment of moonvertising, escaping this bombardment actually would be impossible, due to the transformation of the Earth’s orbital into an intergalactic billboard.

Moonvertising brings the ideals of consumerism, marketing and corporate values to an extreme that overwhelms any previous criticism. By using the moon as a means to sell a product, Rolling Rock would be essentially taking ownership of the moon for its own personal ad campaign. On the Rolling Rock website, Ron Stablehorn-the V.P, Marketing executive for the company-describes Rolling Rock as an “independently minded” beer that needs an outside-the-box ad campaign. He certainly found it in moonvertising. Since “Rolling Rock is extra pale, has a rich tradition and is best shared with others, just like the moon,” moonvertising is an obvious advertisement choice.

While it is now clear that Rolling Rock’s campaign is a spoof, the idea brings up questions that, before long, we may have to face. With the prevalence of billboards, flashing pop-up ads, and buses serving as surfaces for product placement, how long will it be until we can expect to see the man on the moon selling us the newest trend from the night sky? The reality is that commercialized ads are so commonplace in our daily lives that I originally thought moonvertising could be a real possibility, as terrifying a concept as it is.

That said, hats off to Rolling Rock. This campaign has inspired hours of conversation, thousands of google searches, and even this article. After all, when was the last time you opened up the paper and read about an independent beer ad campaign? The billboards displayed all around Los Angeles have made people stop and think, and while they are thinking, they are thinking about Rolling Rock. What sells better than science fiction?

If this is what the future holds, the world doesn’t look too bright. The mega-corporations in this country already hold most of the power on this planet. Imagine what would happen if the moon became Coca-Cola’s own personal chalkboard. We would all be powerless to escape the commercialism. So next time you look up at the night sky, imagine the Nike swoosh staring down at you from above, spreading the word to buy, buy, buy, and realize that we might be taking this whole capitalism thing a little too far.

Christina LeBlanc is an undeclared sophomore. She can be reached at cleblanc@oxy.edu.

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