To infinity and beyond: How a UK ISC alum’s idea blasted off online and into space

Graduates of the University of Kentucky Department of Integrated Strategic Communication (ISC) are trained to target specific audiences in their communication campaigns, but Jonathon Spalding, a 2013 ISC alum, never anticipated that he may need to know how to target a specific region of space and its potential alien audiences too.

Last year, Spalding, creative director at Lexington-based advertising agency Cornett, and his colleagues were brainstorming a new campaign for long-term client, VisitLEX, the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. Throughout a decade of working with VisitLEX, Cornett has produced several viral campaigns for the hometown brand.

“Earned media has been our superpower as an agency, and especially for VisitLEX," Spalding said. “It allows us to concept big, press worthy ideas that get people talking about Lexington. On relatively small budgets, we can earn millions of dollars' worth of awareness for our brands.”

In the last few years alone, Cornett and VisitLEX have invited visitors to bring their post-pandemic houseplant pals to stay at the world’s first plant-friendly hotel, encouraged “The Queen’s Gambit” fans to stop by the 21c Museum Hotel for an experience straight out of Netflix’s most-watched scripted limited series, and created a brand for sneakerheads who just so happen to own (or even be) a horse with the Horse Kicks campaign. Horse Kicks became Cornett’s most successful campaign as of 2022 with three billion earned impressions and 274 earned media placements, becoming a real company for local sneaker artist, Marcus Floyd.   

To top the success of Horse Kicks, Spalding and his team knew they needed an idea that was out of this world. Spalding took this phrase literally and pitched the outrageous idea of creating the world’s first interstellar tourism campaign titled “Hey, Aliens! Look at Lexington.”

Expecting laughter and a swift change of topic, Spalding was shocked when the idea began to gain some traction, which then quickly changed to action.

“We were in a media meeting, and someone mentioned terrestrial radio; I had like three cups of coffee before the meeting and thought: ‘has anybody ever done extraterrestrial radio?’” Spalding said. “This was right when all of the UFO congressional hearings were going on, so we knew it was the right time and we had the perfect brand for it.”

Spalding and the Cornett team spent the next few months collaborating with experts from the University Kentucky who specialize in linguistics, computer engineering, philosophy and science fiction to develop the message as well as a plan for transmitting the world’s first interstellar travel ad. The UK College of Arts and Sciences faculty members included Andrew Byrd, Ph.D., associate professor in the UK Department of Linguistics; Brenna Reinhart Byrd, Ph.D., associate professor in the UK Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Kishonna Gray, Ph.D., associate professor in the UK Department of Gender and Women's Studies; and Meg Wallace, Ph.D., associate professor in the UK Department of Philosophy. Robert Lodder, a UK professor with a joint appointment in A&S' Department of Chemistry and the UK College of Pharmacy, also contributed to the project.

The collaborators crafted the message consisting of four grayscale images representing life in Lexington, an audio recording from legendary blues musician Tee Dee Young and a coded bitmap image containing clues to the origin and intent of the transmission. The team decided to use an infrared laser to transmit their binary encoded message to potential extraterrestrials in the TRAPPIST-1 system, a potentially habitable system 40 light years away. The use of an infrared laser, however, required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“These kinds of ideas are inherently risky and there's always something that comes up that makes you think it might not happen,” Spalding said. “But you push through it and figure it out. For us it was the FAA approval, but it ended up being a really cool part of this project. We got the green light the day before we planned to send the message.”

The team’s hard work culminated in a “Welcome Party” event at the Kentucky Horse Park, where the team transmitted the message. During the event, the team donned custom “Hey, Aliens! Look at Lexington” jackets, streamed “ET” on a projector, drank a custom Bourbon Galactic Smash cocktail and snacked on space-themed treats.

For an inside look at the transmission event, watch the recap video here.

“Afterward, someone said, ‘I can’t believe we just threw a field party for aliens,’” Spalding said. “All I could do was laugh. It was just such a fun moment.”

Aside from the event, the team put together some additional elements of the campaign including a website with the nearly 40-year countdown until the message reaches the TRAPPIST-1 system, an extraterrestrial’s guide to Lexington and a time capsule located in the Lexington Visitors Center that holds the laser and one of the custom jackets. While checking out the time capsule at the Lexington Visitors Center or when stopping by the campaign's website, visitors can also write a postcard with a welcome message to aliens in case of their arrival.

In the end, Spalding and the team’s hard work paid off with the campaign garnering more than three billion earned impressions and more than 1,100 earned placements — four times the number of placements for the successful Horse Kicks campaign. Based on these numbers, the campaign generated $28 million in earned media ad value, making it Cornett’s most successful campaign to date. The story was featured in the Washington Post, People Magazine, NPR, Fast Company, Forbes and the front page of USA Today.

“It's so worth it. The whole team, everybody who put their heart into it, gets to ride the wave whenever it goes big,” Spalding said. “I'm refreshing Google every five minutes, waiting for another article to hit, so I can share with the team. It's the biggest adrenaline rush I think you can have in this line of work."

For any students interested in creative direction and working on these types of projects in the future, Spalding said to not only take advantage of the opportunities that UK and the ISC department specifically have to offer, but to also explore the trends in the advertising field, joining student organizations and making connections in the industry. He said the best thing students can do to be successful in any creative field is to observe and be a student of culture.

“That’s where all the best ideas come from,” Spalding said.

Spalding credits his experience in the ISC program in helping him feel confident enough to take on these kinds of projects now and in the future.

“I think the ISC program has really set me up for success at Cornett, and I think anybody who's graduated from that program at Cornett would tell you the same thing,” Spalding said. “The ISC program and the opportunities that come along with it are going to give you an amazing foundation, probably some of the best marketing, advertising communication foundation that you can get."