Companies will go to great lengths — and heights — to promote products. In the stunt captured so cooly on this video, Samsung attached memory cards to 100 paper airplanes and launched them from the edge of space.
The planes were sent up in a helium balloon on 17 January in Wolfsburg, Germany, then released. The craft were designed with the help of paper airplane expert Andy Chipling.
This promotion rocks from so many angles.
- First, Samsung wanted to prove its cards can survive a trip in a helium balloon about 37 kilometres (about 20 miles) above the Earth’s surface.
- Second, in an era in which people half a world away can communicate via electronics instantaneously, how retro to spread your message with little winged wonders that share a lineage with the crafts we tossed at each other in primary school.
- Third, the moment in the video when the planes are released is so beautiful and bizarre.
People who retrieve the planes can plug the chips into their computers to send a message back to the team. So far, landings have been reported in far-flung spots as Sydney (Yes, that out-of-the-way backwater!); Khabarovsk, Russia; Bangalore, India; South Africa; Winnipeg, Canada; and Turlock, California, USA.
Now that’s what we call getting the word out. Keep ’em flying, boys!
