Big Ideas Need Space

Four students from the VCU Brandcenter turned a standard class assignment into a literal launch.
Given a standard class project to solve an awards brief, the team, two copywriters, one art director, and one producer flipped it on its head. Instead of creating a traditional portfolio piece, they set out to prove that big ideas deserve big stages by using a weather balloon to send a self-promotional ad into space - 120,000 feet to be exact.

After a month of research, physics calculations, testing, and production planning, the team successfully launched their ad on February 25. While the ad's journey was being filmed with a Brandcenter-owned GoPro, the four students drove across the state of Virginia, following the balloon via GPS. After launching from Rocky Mount, VA their self promotion landed in a tree 200 miles away in Ivor, VA, about an hour and a half south of Richmond. The students then had to employ the help of the land owner, his grandson, and a shotgun to retrieve their ad from the tree.

What started as a classroom project turned into a fully executed near-space launch, concepted, produced, and documented entirely by the student team of John Marenic, Josef Pellegrini, Noah McKee and Nick Luna.

The full case study, from brief rewrite to liftoff, lives at BigIdeasNeedSpace.com, along with behind the scenes of the journey. The team is also releasing the project across LinkedIn and Instagram, inviting folks to follow along in real time.

In a hiring landscape where young creatives are fighting to stand out, this project asks a simple question: how far would you go to get noticed?