Axe Apollo : ticket to space
To infinity and beyond ! Axe (Lynx) is launching its Apollo Space Academy campaign, and will give the opportunity to 22 people around the world to win tickets for a space trip.
I have been working for about 15 years in marketing and communication, and as long as I remember there has always been a fantasy for brands to send people to outer space. I don’t have in mind any brand that actually did it (If you know some, please share in the comments).
Axe is launching today a massive campaign based on this promise. The Apollo Space Academy website gathers all the information. And the Unilever brand got legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin to launch it.
If the operation is ambitious, the mecanism remains quite simple. Basically it’s a contest, where people from more than 60 countries can apply, and ask their local communities to vote for them.
Selected people will then access to the Orlando spacecamp for a final round based on different exciting tests, such as a flight in a jet or a zero gravity experience. The story doesn’t tell (yet) if Axe Girls, historical icons of the brand who don’t play their traditional role in this campaign for now, will be part of the tests.
Then 22 lucky guys (or girls) will get the chance to fly into space in a suborbital space plane built by the U.S. company XCOR Aerospace and operated by the tourism firm Space Expedition Curacao. Funny story, the name of the plane is apparently Lynx, which is the name of Axe in some English speaking countries.
This global campaign will be supported by local initiatives. In France Buzzman just launched a Tumblr to illustrate in their own funny way, how, thanks to Axe, the Astronauts can now be regular people. And I am pretty sure this is just a start.
Space has become very popular as a creative, not to say megalomaniac, territory for brand. We all have in mind the exceptional and historical Red Bull Stratos project. The space advertising era has just begun. Remember Hancock ?
