A friend of mine, David Meerman Scott, the definitive guru on Inbound Marketing and the author of the best selling The New Rules of PR & Marketing, just wrote The Marketing of the Moon. Published by MIT Press, this fascinating book unfolds the story behind the story of the close collaboration of corporate America with the highest officials of government, with the leaders of the best technical universities and research centers and with the senior management of NASA to land a person on the moon.
By the time John Kennedy announced in January, 1961 before a joint session of Congress the challenge that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, detailed marketing and financial partnerships had long been struck with corporations like Disney and General Foods (just to name two) to market such diverse products such as TomorrowLand and Tang All of this was part of the detailed marketing and sales campaigns that would be required to market the critical importance of space exploration to the American public. As a result, over the decade, the government would end up spending hundreds of billions fueling NASA and diverting those dollars away from other programs. And, all through those years, the American people remained highly supportive of the importance of this immense task. By July, 1969, 94% of Americans were tuned into their televisions watching the first landing on the moon. Space exploration was on the forefront of everyone's dreams after a decade of hard work, countless innovations and consistent marketing by the government and thousands of businesses as to the critical nature of "Winning the race to the moon".
