• by Greg Castronuovo , May 20, 2008

With help from British space scientists, a 30-second spot for Doritos will be beamed past Earth's atmosphere and into the universe. The Doritos spot will be sent from the EISCAT Space Centre in the Arctic Ocean to a solar system 42 light years away, an area that's thought to contain a habitable zone.

Media In Canada, March 11, 2008

The first transmission seemed absurd to us. No one had any clue what a "Dorito" was. In our world, it is considered an insult to push an external promotional communication into one's personal atmosphere.

We are a simple people with evolved senses, so when this loud burst popped into our world, it caused quite a ruckus. Unlike you, we do not see and hear with exterior sensors. Our brains have developed beyond the need for eyes and ears. We have no need for mass communication. Everything is empathically communicated based on our willingness to receive messages. Product messages are beamed directly into our minds based on our moods. Hungry? The central server scans us and anticipates our need for nourishment.

We have learned from your "Google" that on June 12, 2008, the advertisement was beamed from a 500 MHz Ultra High Frequency Radar from the EISCAT Space Centre in Svalbard, located in the Arctic Ocean about halfway between Norway and the North Pole. It traveled at the speed of light and continued undiscovered for five years until it invaded our peaceful existence.

Our council considered this invasion a terrible violation of our sovereign domain and wanted to strike back with terrible vengeance. Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed, and we decided that before we terminated yet another civilization, it might be prudent for us to understand a society arrogant enough to litter our universe with product propaganda. Truthfully, many of us just wanted to learn more about this thing called "Doritos."

Over the past five years, we've studied your planet and we've seen how you bask in the abundance of what you call advertising. It is everywhere. Our senses were overloaded. Several of our top analysts were hospitalized for fatigue. We could not process all of your ads. We soon understood that these ads are the fuel that keeps your society moving forward. They are like giant cultural flash cards that tell you how to spend your time and money. They teach you how to dress and what to watch and eat. They track your behaviors and offer you relevant and irrelevant information about opportunities of which you might not otherwise have been aware.

We sent spies to your planet who disguised themselves as ordinary citizens. Several took positions at your top advertising agencies. We learned about the value your society places on these ads, especially around a sporting event called the Super Bowl. We participated in neuromarketing - the practice of culling regular people from the streets and, in exchange for free products, allow themselves to be hooked up to brain sensors that decipher the effects ads have on your primitive minds. We were appalled at such barbaric techniques.

Our secondary mission was easier to achieve. It didn't take long for us to find "Doritos." We found hundreds of varieties in numerous stores throughout your world. We were overwhelmed by choice. We attempted to sample every variety and eagerly ripped open the highly decorative polyethylene sacks. With every delectable bite, the nature of "Doritos" and its meaning to your society began to take shape for us. We realized that while there was little nutritional value in these odd triangular composites, we could not stop ingesting them. At great expense, we smuggled millions of containers back to our home world. Soon all of our beings were ingesting these cheesy wonders. By the time we learned that we could not metabolize one of Doritos' main ingredients - disodium inosinate (E631), chemical formula C₁₀H₁₁N₂Na₂O₈P - it was too late. The first wave of illness wiped out 50 percent of our population. Another 25 percent became ill soon after. Doritos consumption was banned in our world, and now the council has vowed to retaliate with all its vengeance.

We are left with only one conclusion from our mission: Advertising works, but one must be careful about where it is placed.