NASA will receive about 10 bottles of the new Estée Lauder skincare serum as astronauts will shoot the beauty company's commercial ad at the International Space Station (ISS) later this month. The marketing deal costs $128,000, including the astronauts' $17,500 per hour professional fee.
NASA now oversees the largest business activity in the space station so far as astronauts will shoot footages of the products in the microgravity environment of the ISS. These videos will be used in Estée Lauder ad campaigns and other advertisements for its Estée Lauder's Advanced Night Repair skin serum.
However, NASA astronauts will not appear in the ads as it will go against NASA's ethics policies that strictly bar them from taking part in any marketing campaign. Instead, they will take images and video footages of the products afloat in the space station as they arrive aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft. The products will be packed along with other 8,000 pounds of cargo.
A NASA spokesperson told CNN Business, the space agency's partnership with Estée Lauder is part of NASA's efforts to open business with private-sectors on space projects and expand its budget to bringing astronauts into deep space. This means the space station can now be used for entertainment and marketing purposes.
According to New Scientist, NASA will bill Estée Lauder's partner for the marketing campaign, Space Commerce Matters $128,000, which would include astronauts' "professional fee" of about $17,500 per hour. This is just fraction of the overall costs of the mission.
"I'm a risk taker, and that tends to basically come with ideas that are a little bit, you know, outside of the normal, traditional ways of doing marketing," said Estée Lauder president Stephane de la Faverie who hinted about the company's plans in August during a panel at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's virtual Ascend Summit.
NASA commercial marketing efforts
In June 2019, NASA announced its decision to allow business and commercial enterprises to "lay the foundation for America to maintain a constant human presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO)." The recent Esteé Lauder campaign is among hundreds of businesses that go beyond the boundaries of the Earth.
NASA vows to achieve commercial economy as the space agency partners with businesses to focus with its goal of landing humans in Moon by 2024. Meanwhile, the agency is only allowing just 5% of its crew's time for these private activities.
Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA headquarters wrote to CNN that a "robust commercial space economy will support national interests" while the Congressional transitions to creating a low-Earth orbit commercial human space flight industry.
NASA has also signed a marketing agreement with Adidas that may include astronauts testing clothes and sneakers on the space station. The agency also confirmed in May that it was working with Tom Cruise on shooting a movie in ISS while the winner of a reality TV show will be sent to the station in 2023.
While aerospace engineer Todd Humphreys says these campaigns may hinder in the way of real science, "it's probably a good trade-off" if serious lab work can still be done.
