Still pitching a far-out idea: ads in space
By Alana Semuels
June 10, 2007
It started as a joke. But after a while, Robert H. Lorsch began to think that selling advertising in space wasn't so funny.
More than 20 years after his ad agency used maps of the moon and the freeze-dried ice cream favored by astronauts to make pitches to potential clients, the Beverly Hills businessman is still lobbying for the commercialization of space.
And his idea might yet get off the ground -- Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) plans to introduce a bill that would create a committee to investigate which advertising partnerships NASA might pursue.
"In the beginning, they probably thought I was some crackpot," Lorsch says. "Now, they're not sure I'm such a crackpot."
When he moved to Southern California in 1967, Lorsch was a high school dropout from Chicago without any particular passion. He paid the bills by selling smokeless cigarettes and cigarette filters out of the trunk of his car, then talked his way into a job at a marketing firm.
From there he built Lorsch Creative Network, which in the 1980s was one of the largest sales promotion agencies in the country. His clients included television networks ABC, CBS and NBC, McDonald's Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co.
Lorsch says he felt compelled to respond to President Reagan's challenge to the private sector in 1981 to help relieve the government's financial burden. He presented his plan to several members of Congress: NASA should allow companies to put their names on plaques inside space shuttles, charging $1 million for the privilege, and let corporate America promote its backing of the space program in the same way businesses do when they pay to be sponsors of the Olympics.
Congress didn't bite. Lorsch protected his idea anyway, threatening legal action after NASA made a deal in 1993 with Columbia Pictures to promote the movie "Last Action Hero" on a rocket. His attorney said NASA had breached an agreement with Lorsch. By then, Lorsch had already copyrighted the idea of advertising in space. In the end, the rocket with the movie ad on it was never launched.
Although NASA has participated in some commercial partnerships that allow businesses to use information learned from space missions, the agency isn't permitted to profit from such pacts. By contrast, the Russian space agency has embraced advertising as a way to fund its program and has signed deals with Pepsi, Pizza Hut and Kodak. Pizza Hut paid about $1.3 million to put a logo on a Russian spacecraft and Pepsi shelled out $5 million to have a cosmonaut float a replica of a soda can in outer space.
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