Bezos’s Branding Blasts off Backwards

In March this year, six women were shuttled to space and back. This was supposed to have us wow over barriers being smashed.

All throughout, the Bezos marketing loudspeaker blared out that this was an historic occasion, a recognition of women, a breakthrough achievement. Barriers smashed.

But straight away the crowd smelled cheese. Only two of the passengers had the astronautical chops to be there: Aisha Bowe being a former NASA rocket scientist and Amanda Nguyen a bioastronautics research scientist. The rest were chosen merely for their fame: A morning show host, a film producer, a singer, and Bezos’s fiancée.

The presence of much-more-famous Katy Perry now being hailed a hero astronaut overshadowed the presence of Bowe and Nguyen, giving the whole stunt a flavour of tokenism.

Katy Perry - ever the performer.

The short, completely automated jaunt lasted less time than it has taken me to cook a steak, required less effort and probably also less risk given the way I cook steak. Nobody on board was required to do anything, which then undermined the presence of those who were qualified.

Bezos claimed to be inspiring girls to grow up to be engineers, but instead the message was that you just need to be famous.

Blue Origin’s brand message was not ‘We support the advancement of women in engineering,’ but ‘We will manipulate your thoughts, and exploit the fame of popular women to advance our own interests.’

In matters of taste, the customer is right on this one, Jeff.