“Down-to-earth food”

A good episode of WGBH’s Innovation Hub : “The American Achievement of Advertising Apollo,” with Kara Miller interviewing David Meerman Scott, co-author, with Richard Jurek, of Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program. A reference to a Stouffer’s advertisement with an Apollo tie-in made me curious. So I found it, in the August 8, 1969 issue of Life:


[“Everybody Who’s Been to the Moon Is Eating Stouffer’s.” Food for “the critical postlunar quarantine period.” Click for a larger view.]

One tricky feature of Apollo-related advertising: companies could not depict an astronaut using a product or imply that a particular astronaut used a product. Here we must imagine the astronaut of our choice eating main dishes, side dishes, and meat pies.

I was surprised but not surprised to learn that NASA gave Life exclusive access to astronauts’ families. The money the families received in exchange for that access supplemented the astronauts’ modest salaries.

The August 8, 1969 issue of Life — “On the Moon” — is full of Apollo-related advertising. Here, look.

And here’s a 1969 non-Apollo-related TV spot with the slogan “Stouffer’s plays it straight.”