They launched into space, and Louis Vuitton into cyberspace

Louis Vuitton will use Internet for the first time in his new Core Values advertising campaign, in which he’s brought together three astronauts of mythic proportions. The new portrait, created by the agency Ogilvy & Mather and photographed by Annie Leibovitz in the California desert, is the seventh in Vuitton’s Core Values series of celebrities. Sally Ride, the first woman to go to space, gazes at a full moon while she relaxes on the hood of an old pickup truck, accompanied by Buzz Alrin and Jim Lovell. Aldrin was the second person to step on the moon on the Apollo XI mission, while Lovell was the commander of the ill-fated Apollo XIII mission. The photo caption reads, “Some journeys change mankind forever.” Vuitton thus pays homage to the 40th anniversary of man’s arrival on the moon, following the theme of journey as personal enrichment in the Core Values campaigns, which have featured celebrities like Sophia and Francis Ford Coppola, Keith Richards, Mikhail Gorbachev and Sean Connery. This will be Vuitton’s first fully integrated press and digital campaign. On July 2 he will be launching the website Louisviuittonjourneys, which will include interviews with the astronauts in a highly interactive format that will actually allow the user to step into the role of film director. The website will also include an interview on Nobel Peace Prize Al Gore’s The Climate Project.