Houston We Have A Problem

Turns out building rockets is actually rocket science as Forever Beta creates comedy epic fail stunt to launch crane driver Steve into space.

In a campaign developed by agency Forever Beta, Ben Jarvis of Norfolk-based company Rocket-FX spent a year building a rocket from scratch in a cow shed. An ad was then placed in a newspaper’s classified section seeking a plucky ‘rocket man’ to partake in the stunt. That honour fell to Stephen Palmer, 30, from Kent, who says he was perfect for the job because as a crane operator, he already had “a head for heights”.

The 28ft-high creation was put together with rockets acquired from a military sub-contractor and was filled with around 40kg of propellant. It used two tonnes of thrust and was capable of reaching more than half the speed of sound in three seconds – theoretically. Steve was kitted out in a space suit from eBay that had been used in a Ukrainian aerospace programme.

The campaign kicked off with the placement of a 60-second cut of the video on guys’ digital magazine The Lad Bible on Thursday (October 20 2016) and garnered more than 189,000 views in the first four days. The second-stage of the marketing drive will see Ben and Steve’s story pushed to national newspapers, magazines and websites, with longer versions of the video telling the story of the ‘launch’ from start to finish.

As the hilarious video reveals, the project didn’t actually attain the lofty heights intended: “The height the capsule reached was probably a little over 1,500ft, nowhere near as high as we dreamed of, which was 250,000-350,000ft... the edge of space,” says rocket builder Ben, who proudly claims his company has built “all sorts of crazy things like rocket-powered toilets, garden sheds and bicycle ejector seats.”

On his selection for the project Steve, says “I was reading The Metro on the way to work one day and saw a small advert saying ‘rocket man needed’. I sent a video from a skiing trip where I carried out a backflip. I’ve ejected myself from motorbikes many a time, and work on very tall buildings. Heights don’t bother me and crashes don’t bother me.” Which is just as well really…. Steve was sadly reconnected with earth only a few minutes after take off.  “I remember a very loud bang,” he says. Curiously, he lived to tell the tale though...

One doesn't need a space probe to figure out that the project was more about launching into the digital space rather than the stratosphere and it turns out that no crane drivers were actually hurt in the making of this film.

Niomi Taylor, marketing manager for FBG, which owns Rocket Fuel, says: “We hope this video activity will reach a wider audience and show how we are a fun brand with a cult following. It very much matches our brand personality. Small brands such as ours should take more risks to get the message out there. Our coffee is seen as hardcore due to its much higher caffeine content and we’ve brought that into our marketing activity. What this campaign proves is that you don’t need millions to do something fun and ground-breaking to raise brand awareness. If this campaign really takes off, we’ve loads more plans for Steve and for the rocket theme going forward.”