Friday, March 8, 2013

Marketing blitz flies into space

Several consumers would have won laptops or a holiday tour through marketing contests, but here’s one that will take people from across the world to travel into space. 

In what is being considered to be one of its biggest promotional events so far, Axe, a Unilever brand, has partnered with Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) to send 22 men and women from across the world into space. SXC is a private company, which is planning to kick-start its daily commercial flights into space in 2014. 

None other than Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, has been roped in as the ambassador to promote the Axe Apollo Space Academy, or AASA, to rhyme with NASA, which will shortlist men and women through an online competition. The winners will be sent into space on board the Lynx, a two-seater sub-orbital reusable launch vehicle, in 2014. 
    
Across 90 countries, about a hundred people would be selected to go to a three-day space camp. They would experience the training astronauts undergo. From this group, 22 people would be selected to go into space. SXC is the launch customer of the space vehicle XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx vehicle that takes off and lands like a normal airplane from regular airports.