BURBANK and KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — In simultaneous press conferences today on both coasts, NASA, fourth-place NBC and legendary TV talker-comic Jay Leno scored a marketing and branding coupe. The trio announced that a new Greenbox Brocco-Flower broccoli and cauliflower vending machine had been sent aloft to the International Space Station today aboard the shuttle Atlantis.
From the deal, NBC gets to promote Leno’s new 10 p.m. show and the all-important lead-in for its affiliates’ 11 o’clock news. At the same time, NASA receives a boat-load, or shuttle-load in this case, of much needed cash while addressing its seldom-mentioned concerns that some astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the ISS are hitting the junk food a little hard. Onboard obesity has reportedly caused a few Ph.D.s and other crackerjack crackpots to theorize that the ISS could slip into a lower orbit as its portly space travelers continue accumulating the pounds and popping the zippers on their $32 million spacesuits. By sending the Greenbox veggie vending machine to the ISS, NASA cashes in on a marketing bonanza while the orbit jockeys lose some weight. Since Leno, a previously avowed veggie hater who’s attempting to turn over a new leaf and go green by endorsing the innovative vending machines, is the primary investor in Greenbox, the original idea was to send him to the ISS to broadcast his show live back down to several dozen viewers in 11 Midwestern states and two elderly nuns residing in the Canadian Maritimes.
But Leno balked at the last minute and said he needed to stay home, do his hair and feed his beloved cat, “Slim Jim.”
“Wait, send John Melendez instead,” Leno reportedly suggested to his bosses at NBC. “He needs the gig and if he’s willing for us to shave his head on national television, then he’ll go into space too.”
But when contacted to see if he was willing to blast off into space, Melendez was reportedly quoted as saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no, w-a-a-a-a-a-y-y-y-y.
“It’s still the mi-mi-mi-mi-middle of the fo-fo-fo-fo-football season and I can’t st-st-st-stand to leave my New York Gi-Gi-Gi-Giants.”
With Leno and Melendez both refusing to hitch a ride aboard Atlantis to the ISS, Greenbox marketing officials were able to convince NASA to instead send the prototype Greenbox vending machine to the space station aboard today’s shuttle launch.
But at the last minute, it was discovered that the broccoli and cauliflower vending machine weighed more than 400 pounds. NASA only allotted 300 pounds when it put the last vending machine aboard ISS — a chocolate and vanilla soft serve machine. Because of the excess cargo weight, the space agecy was ready to assess a $150,000 overweight fee.
The fee was on the verge of scuttling the whole project/marketing campaign when Leno stepped forward and said he was willing to sell his prized pink 1957 Ford Edsel and his rare gold-embossed 1959 Studebaker Lark from his private collection. Together, the cars were expected bring an estimated $35 million — enough to pay the overweight cargo fee and fund more than 40 percent of NASA’s budget for the entire 2010 fiscal year.
“It’s a win-win all around,” an NBC spokesman said. “Everybody gets to go green.
“The astroanuts and cosmonauts get to eat more green. Jay’s willing to pay more green to go green and CBS, ABC, Fox, the CW and two low-powered UHF TV stations in Arkansas and Indiana will be green with envy because of all the great marketing opportunities they’re missing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment