Tundra Tows Space Shuttle

One evening, on my way home, I heard on NPR about NASA retiring the Space Shuttle program. The Endeavour would come to the Science Museum in Los Angeles. Having spent weeks ideating on ways to demonstrate capability for the Toyota Tundra, with little to show for it, the idea landed like a sonic boom. It was simple, and anyone could understand it, expressed in one sentence. But would it be possible? It had to be. 

It’s too long a story for here, but let’s just say we had a client who had a client/partner (the Museum of Science) who had hired a moving company with Space Shuttle-moving credentials (under NASA supervision) and a different company to build a special dolly for the space shuttle to go over the 405 freeway, since the regular one was too heavy — according to Caltrans, the state agency responsible for safety with final sign-off. Not a recipe for simplicity.

On one phone call, someone (can’t name names) said they had a promise from the LA mayor that he’d call the governor to get sign-off if need be. I thought to myself, “Dang, we’re not on a field in Switzerland anymore.” 

The project would not have been done had it not been for a small, highly dedicated team at Saatchi and a visionary client. The spectacle at 11:33 pm on October 12th, 2012, was the culmination of a 6-month production marathon. The north approach to LAX shut down (thanks to our producer) so we could have a helicopter and 8 other cameras film it; we held our breath for 4 long minutes. 

Over a billion earned media impressions and a feat so unbelievable that people didn’t believe it was real — the one thing we hadn’t anticipated. Scroll to the bottom, and you’ll see how we addressed that problem.