Apple iPod: One Giant Leap for Advertising
I think this may be an exclusive! It’s Apple’s 30th birthday next month; and they’re planning something big to mark the occasion.
Today I learned from a trusted source that Apple is poised to make history next Saturday when it unveils the worlds first advertisement that can be seen from space.
Apple had hoped to keep their creation secret until the grand unveiling, however, after I was tipped off, and with just a little bit of lateral digging, I was able to uncover enough background information to get a clue of the location.
From there, it was just a matter of firing up Google Earth, and hunting for it! The pictures are a few months old, but clearly show the advert well on the way to completion.
The sheer size of the publicity stunt is difficult to comprehend. It covers 893240 square metres; roughly equivalent to eighty football pitches.
The ad, which depicts Apple’s flagship iPod product has been constructed on the site of an abandoned mineral mine in remote western Australia. It has been in development for almost two years since Apple’s founder Steve Jobs acquired the location during a game of poker with (the late) Australian publishing and gaming tycoon Kerry Packer.
Aliens need not worry about advertising regulations however; the general concensus is that the edge of space is at a height of 62 miles (100Km), and once you go much higher than that, the ad will very quickly shrink towards invisibility. It’ll look like an iPod nano for a while, then maybe a tictac.
Speculation is currently rife that the grand unveiling will be coordinated with the launch of a touch screen Video iPod.
Apple have a press meeting scheduled at the start of next month when more details will be revealed – you heard it here first.
See it in Google Maps.
See it in Google Earth (Free Mac & PC versions available).
71 Comments
Incredible scoop if it’s true!
Nice hoax
Looks like a mine’s repository pool, and in Australia no less.
Cheers!
-Tal
Very good story – if there was not another structure very close that looked exactly like it.
Yeah – that area is rife with adverts. You gotta hand it to the crafty Aussies in WA that can turn tailing ponds into riches. Are you sure that Jobs wasn’t playing craps? See this one nearby for the Kicking Horse Casino Tables, and this one that is underway for Nintendo’s new release of PacMan, and here is one for one of those sudsy-dudsy bathroom cleaners, and the beginning of the ad for the llama ranchers:
Cheers!
Do you not think that the date of the launch on Saturday is significant (1st April)?
Would that press meeting be on April 1st by any chance?
Nice, except if you understand how evaporative ponds work that’s exactly what it is, there are more than one as well in the general vincinity. BTW Mr. Job’s as far as I know doesn’t play poker.
iPod Owner Found
One reader has suggested that the owner of the iPod may already be well known to the Google Earth Community.
I’d not seen it before; this is a pretty amazing coincidence.
See it in Google Maps
See it in Google Earth
Amazing ! Almost as amazing as the remarkable coincidence of April Fool’s Day and the presence of filter beds in the region
Not sure it’s really an ad, it looks like a normal tailings dam, common in the mining industry. It’s a cute bit of fun, though, as is the big-haired iPod giant.
Check it out, we did a photographic summary of the iPod-from-space meme.
http://blog.reallyrocketscience.com/node/101
looking forward to the advertising campaign with this. i can just imagine it now, a 2001 like ad, zooming in on this ad. will be interesting at the very least.
Chech out the earphones hanging from his ears!
I don’t think you should’ve published this information. I believe birthday celebrations are supposed to be a surprise. Nice, nontheless.
I already read this somewhere, i cant remember where but when i saw this and read that if was an exclusive story i have to correct you, it isnt, i already read it and thta it was aquired in a poker match, and saw it on google maps, sorry mate
Hey! The iPod owner lives 3 hours away from me! I’ll have to make a visit some time!
-Percy
What zip code can I find that iPod? And what zip code is that Owner of the iPod thing?
Thanks.
Do you know if the iPOD will be a working version or just a “store display”. If it is a working version, where are they going to find a thumb big enough to select songs?
err yeah, they didn’t even acknowledge it on thier homepage, let alone do anythng to promote the fact. Most odd.
That’s pretty funny.
I grew up about 100kms from this spot (right here). Had a good laugh about the tailings dam – it does look quite like an iPod.
Drew
Hey Man,
This is a nice hoax. Don’t belive that.
[]‘s
Breno
This little iPod picture keeps resurfacing
. Now it’s on BoingBoing