Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

As advertising becomes increasingly ubiquitous, it’s even taken over space. No, not that recent deal where a Russian astronaut hits a branded golf ball into outer space for a few thousand dollars. Now the satellites are working the other way… Recently, as part of a rebranding effort, KFC Corp. worked with an event-marketing company to have its 87,500-square-foot Colonel Saunders logo photographed from space by GeoEye's Ikonos satellite as it passed over the site. Originally developed to serve more serious business and government purposes, the satellite-image industry is eager to broaden its reach into less serious comercial uses. GeoEye calls it "astro-tising" using projects like KFC's as a demonstration of  creative ways to use space-based technology." Using one-foot-square tiles painted red, white, eggshell, beige and black to construct the new KFC logo, they were assembled like a jigsaw puzzle near Area 51, the remote Air Force test center that's long been rumored to be a UFO rendezvous. GeoEye charged KFC $2,000 for the job, not including the construction of the logo, and it was unveiled in November as the company announced a campaign aimed at contemporizing its restaurants. You can expect to see more of this kind of thing as we run out of roadsides to fill up with billboards.

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