Moonvertising

The blogs and tech sites I've read seem to indicate that the idea of sending a huge laser beam to the moon to write out a corporate image is technically feasible. The problem being the FAA isn't too wacky about it (they get all upset with laser pointers, think about what they'd feel about this).So the consensus has been that Rolling Rock has put together a stunt-advertising campaign to get people to go to Moonvertising.com and play around with their features there (hence, me not linking to it).But I'd just like to throw out that Rolling Rock may actually attempt this thing. Shining the beam at the moon from either restricted airspace or from even say, the open ocean in international waters and they might get away with it. Assuming again that Rolling Rock has actually built one of these laser beams in the first place.Coke thought about it back in 1999 and thought they could make it work and get their logo on the surface of the moon for everyone to see ... maybe Rolling Rock will go through with it.And we'll see their green logo on the surface of the moon. I guess we'll have to wait until the 21st to find out whether this is a stunt or a new way to pollute and corrupt nature's wonders with advertising. As Neil Armstrong would say, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap in my Air Jordans."UPDATE: The Boston Globe assures us this is a hoax. From the short article:
To repeat: This is viral advertising; the company isn't actually going to project a laser beam 237,000 miles into space. They sound pretty sure of themselves.(image courtesy Lokiv7 on Flickr using a Creative Commons license. Photo not of the Tacoma billboard)

Moonvertising 2008

Here are the real facts on Moonvertising:
1. It is a Spoof/Hoax campaign for Rolling Rock Beer.
2. There will not be any ads beamed onto the moon on Mar 21 2008.
3. Coke actually tried to do this in 1999 (here). It was banned by the FAA. The power of the lasers needed were deemed likely to cause major problems with bypassing aircraft. LOL.
4. The campaign is created by Advertising agency Goodby Silverstein and Partners.
5. Rolling Rock has produced several spoof campaigns in the past using FAKE ad exec “Ron StableHorn“
6. It is technically possible to produce images reflected off the moon’s surface but seems unlikely that it could ever appear anything like the image below.
7. Here is an image from 1968 when two argon lasers were beamed from Earth (photo taken looking back to Earth from space[edit] ). Might imply that if the technology were ever used it would work better on a new moon not a full one.

More videos from the "Rolling Rock Moonvertising" channel at Heavy.com