The JFK Presidential Library And Museum: WE CHOOSE THE MOON

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Titanium and Integrated
Advertiser: JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
Product/Service: MOON LANDING 40TH ANNIVERSARY
Agency: THE MARTIN AGENCY Richmond, USA
Art Director: Brian Williams (The Martin Agency)
Copywriter: Wade Alger (The Martin Agency)
Creative Director: Joe Alexander (The Martin Agency)
Agency Producer: Darbi Fretwell (The Martin Agency)
Agency Producer: Norma Kwée (The Martin Agency)
Account Supervisor: Carrie Bird (The Martin Agency)
Art Producer: Cindy Hicks (The Martin Agency)
Creative Director: Jon Hills (Domani Studios)
Interactive Art Director: Ben Tricklebank (Domani Studios)
Technology Director: Oscar Trelles (Domani Studios)
Director of Accounts: Jarrod Bull (Domani Studios)
Senior Interactive Producer: Steven Hubert (Domani Studios)
Designer: Saulo Rodrigues (Domani Studios)
Motion Graphics Designer: Justin Young (Domani Studios)
Animator: Petter Safwenberg (Domani Studios)
Senior Developer: Mark Llobrera (Domani Studios)
Flash Developer: Chris Wise (Domani Studios)
Editor: Jim Vaile (Running With Scissors)
Assistant Editor: Shang Gao (Running With Scissors)
Composer: Chip Jenkins (Hum Music)
Describe the campaign/entry:
2009 marked the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Our brief was to honor that historic achievement as the realisation of JFK's dream to land a man on the moon, and bring that mission and his legacy to light for generations both new and old.
We decided to return to the moon and bring the world with us by re-creating the Apollo 11 mission online in real-time.
At precisely 9:32 AM on July 16, 2009, Apollo 11 took off again at wechoosethemoon.org, exactly 40 years after the historic mission. Eleven of the most important stages were portrayed using 3-D animation, and accompanying the visuals were 102 uninterrupted hours of mission audio.
Over 450 photos and videos from the NASA Archive and JFK Library could be viewed throughout the trip. And 650 of the most interesting audio transmissions were rebroadcast via Twitter, exactly 40 years after they were said.
Give some idea of how successful this campaign/entry was with both client and consumer:
During the four-day journey, over 1.25 million unique visitors traveled to the moon, and 30,000 followed the mission on Twitter. Media coverage generated over 160 million impressions worldwide, including live coverage on CNN and countless stories in newspapers, websites and blogs. Eight months after launch, the site has received 3.7 million visits from 217 countries.
Attendance at the JFK Presidential Library increased by 10% over previous years in 2009, keeping the JFK Library as one of the most popular of the presidential libraries.
Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.
As anticipation built around the anniversary, we launched a landing page where visitors could learn about the mission, watch President Kennedy's address that challenged a nation to land a man on the moon and share the site via social networks.
We then began rebroadcasting the details of the mission and astronaut dialogue over Twitter. These would continue until the astronauts returned to Earth.
On July 16, Apollo 11 launched just as it had 40 years ago, and 102 hours of continuous mission audio began. Tweets and retweets from the 30,000 Twitter followers reached 1 million additional people. After four days, on July 20, the astronauts landed on the moon.
After July 20, the live experience converted to a self-guided tour where visitors could interact with the mission, audio, photos and videos at their own pace.