Giant pop can FOUND ON MOON Getting a man on the Moon was one of the 20th century's crowning achievements and a feat that hasn't been matched by any government, let alone a private company. But now one Japanese firm is taking a giant leap for advertising by launching the world's first privately funded lunar mission. So what sort of heroes are going to …
I still don't know, but I know artist Moebius did an addy about it a long time ago, with Cindy Crawford riding the large "mouette à béton".
I just need to know: what IS a pocari, and at what temperature does it begin to sweat?
I had visions of something like milking sheds, but instead of cows with their udders attached to vacuum lines, pocari's are standing under heat lamps, over drip-collecting trays...
'Tis true, the Japanese will go for anything!
Sorry, but that really doesn't make me want to try it. As per one Top Gear Xmas episode, where Jeremy so-called Clarkson asked Richard Hammond if he would like some 'Pussy' (energy drink), I have to ask, as per James May - "What flavour is it?"
Beer because it's just better.
One of the first things I saw when arriving at Tokyo airport to visit friends was a vending machine selling Pocari Sweat. I had to buy a bottle just from pure curiosity. Sadly, it tasted quite good. I can't remember the flavour precisely (it was a long time ago and it's not the sort of thing I file away in memory) but I remember being disappointed it wasn't foul.
The Pocari is a small gazelle found in Southen Africa. Originally the sweat was scraped from its sides after herding and drunk by thirsty herders. The Japanese found a way to synthesise it during the 1960's and the rest is history.
There's no truth in the rumour that the great Pocari Sweat shortage of 2011-2012 was related in any way, shape or form to the failure of the nuclear reactors at Fukishima.
Pocari Sweat tastes mildly of grapefruit juice, which I believe is one of the actual ingredients, but mostly it tastes like... Well it isn't so much the *taste* as the "mouth feel" (which is a real thing.)
It's strangely viscous compared to water, but not overly so. It's also one of those binary drinks - people either love it or hate it. Myself, I adore it. Discovered it about 10 years ago on a trip to Japan and I still poke my head into Asian grocery stores to grab a bottle when I get the chance. I'm reusing one of the empties right now as a water bottle.
That's what I was thinking... no mention of hard landing, soft landing, parachute landing? How much powder? And if it spills will various intergalactic EPA types get involved? Then again, it's a great marketing idea so what can go wrong?
Oh.. from the blurb.. there will be a smart phone app launched with it. Will there be a cell tower going with it?
Obligatory Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat
Have you seen japanese anime?
Someone goes around collecting childrens dreams and sends them to a remote, dark, cold place unreachable by regular humans. This is not a marketing campaign. This is a land grab for the souls of the next generation of Japan from a megalomaniacal demon possessing the body of a soft drinks CEO.
One day one of these children will grow up and want his dream back, setting off on a quest to the moon (seen in reflection on a pond with cherry blossom falling on it) with his improbably large gun-sword, his pre-teen friend who just happens to have a mecha and a wise-cracking pokemon.
They will meet many people along the way and take an interminably long time to achieve anything of significance.
Japan. It's all true.
Don't forget the several different women who are in love with the protagonist.
The upper class tsundere with blonde hair (foreign naturally)
The shy girl with glasses and huge 88 inch tits
The cheeky girl who has characteristics of a cat
The childhood friend who may actually be a bit of a stalker
The younger sister (yeah, Japanese manga/books seems to be going in that direction....
And assorted other women who want to shag the hero even though he's a bit of a plank and wouldn't get laid if he was a carpet.
As many large companies have found out, even unsubstantiated rumours about them advertising on the moon, or even from low-orbit platforms, invariably results in such a barrage of rage and hate and threats of mass boycotts that corporations like Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut and McDonalds have had to fork out millions in damage control debunking the rumours. Every time some advertising twonk get the idea of defacing the moon, the reaction is always the same: any company that defaces celestial bodies will never get our business.
Of course, advertising droids are born with short-circuited cerebral regions that render them completely delusional and cause them to think that people actually crave advertising and want more of it, but even they must realise that such an activity would destroy their clients' businesses when they get hit with the fury such proposals inevitably generate.
When I watched Hancock (a movie about an inept superhero) I found the ending amusing for this reason: Hancock had managed to cover the face of the moon with the heart logo of the charity he'd been supporting. It made me laugh because the real-world reaction to something like that would have utterly destroyed said charity and the cause it was supporting by association!
So no company with any experience of this would want to be associated with defacing the moon. Even though Pocari Sweat is only sending up a sealed canister that won't be visible, a quick Google of this subject and a read of the comments on any news article about it will reveal that this is very likely to do them more harm than good. It will be interesting to see if they actually go ahead with the launch next year after seeing the deluge of hate mail they'll get for this. The only thing in their favour is that they aren't a multinational, and so can't be boycotted by an angry world (and whether the Japanese boycott them for it remains to be seen), but should they ever wish to become one, they may well find their progress stymied by a worldwide reputation as "the company that dumped its litter on the Moon!"
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