In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program by David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek
  • Stephen Petersenspete@gwu.edu
MARKETING THE MOON: THE SELLING OF THE APOLLO LUNAR PROGRAM
by David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek. The MIT Press, Cambridge, London, 2013. 130 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0-262-02696-3.

The Apollo 11 landing of men on the moon in 1969 was, in the words of Walter Cronkite, “the single great story of the century.” This book steps back from the story itself, to tell the story of the story—how the marketing and public relations efforts behind the Apollo project were, in an important sense, crucial parts of that project, making the very achievement possible. The authors are specialists in marketing as well as Apollo enthusiasts and collectors. Presenting a wealth of promotional material, along with latter-day reflections by those involved, they paint a picture of a nearly seamless collaboration between government, private industry and mass media.

Among the unprecedented aspects of the Apollo moon landing was the scope and avidity of its audience. Viewers primed by Jules Verne, Walt Disney and illustrated magazine features on the future of space travel were ready to tune in to the space program. Looking at how this audience was cultivated, and the kinds of information it was given and by what means, Marketing the Moon provides an illuminating overview of the Apollo project seen through the lens of public relations. It also offers some profound insights. Foremost is the way that the NASA Public Affairs office, “with a limited budget, made the most of what they had by adopting a ‘brand journalism’ and ‘content marketing’ approach” (p. xi). Information was freely provided to the press, and the press in turn did the work of disseminating that information at no expense. In this way, educating the public became synonymous with promoting the Apollo “brand.” Business partners likewise contributed to educational efforts.

Meanwhile, the makers of items used in the course of the Apollo mission (Hasselblad cameras, Tang) developed ad campaigns based on this unprecedented “product placement.” The astronauts themselves became spokesmen but also celebrities, widely represented in the media. As crucial representatives of the program, their image was carefully managed and their appearances choreographed.

“Communications,” broadly construed, were integral to the Apollo project, not only in the sense of developing systems of remote communication for the astronauts, but in the way the project was communicated to the public. Thus, one of the most crucial features of Apollo was the fact of its being televised—a fact that was [End Page 200] more of a hindrance than a help to the astronauts themselves but integral to the sense of the public’s vicarious participation. It was not a foregone conclusion that television cameras would be present in space, and once it was decided upon, new technologies were required. As the authors note, “The achievement of broadcasting live television from the Moon was nearly as astonishing as landing there” (p. xi). As a result, the moon landing became an unprecedented media event, represented in real time. As the book repeatedly shows, the press and broadcast journalists were part of the event.

In a sense, the Apollo program became a victim of its own success. Ultimately, “in the course of less than three years, an achievement that, when first accomplished, was acknowledged as a monumental turning point in human history, was slowly reduced in scope, magnitude, and importance into something commonplace” (p. 76). The impossible became the expected: just another space flight, just another moon walk. If the first had been unprecedented, successive moon walks became, in the words of a 1970 newspaper editorial, “virtual reruns” (p. 101).

In an effort to keep up public enthusiasm, NASA organized a 50-state road show featuring the lunar module and a specimen of moon rock, hugely attended but ultimately retrospective in nature. So closely linked were the fortunes of Apollo and its worth as a “story” that the diminishing television ratings for successive Apollo missions ultimately led to the premature cancellation of the program. For the authors, the end of the Apollo project and of manned missions beyond earth’s orbit more...

pdf

Share