Moonvertising

Rolling Rock beer, a brand of Anheuser-Busch, is trying an innovative ad campaign. At the next full moon, which is March 21, Rolling Rock plans to use a laser to project an image of its logo onto the disk of the Moon. It's an interesting idea, though it has been tried before. Coke tried something similar in 1999, but that effort lost its fizzz.

Of course, such a project is in line with the growing effort to use space for commercial purposes. As documented in this blog, several companies are looking at different ways to expand economic activity beyond Earth. That said, however, the Rolling Rock project might well look better in the office of an ad agency than it does when actually attempted. Luna, for all its prominence in the history of life on Earth and in human affairs, is much smaller and dimmer than most people probably realize. A thumb at arm's length completely covers a full moon. That may be too small a platform to support an ad campaign.

On the other hand, the point of ad campaigns is to generate publicity for their subjects. In that respect, Moonvertising may well be successful.