Advertisers And Customers Look To The Skies

16 December 2014
 Categories: , Blog

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Event promoters, public relations personnel, and small business owners are constantly on the lookout for affordable advertising options. Radio spots, highway billboards, and regional television ads are obvious but often expensive formats. When it's time to think outside the box, savvy promoters seeking inspiration – and results – need look in only one direction: up.

Aerial billboard advertising is a proven method of catching and retaining the attention of a crowd. Unlike many traditional, static media formats, the condensed message and innate novelty of an airplane advertisement draws the eyes of consumers and communicates directly to them, all for a fraction of the typical cost of a billboard or radio/TV commercial. And it reaches people where they congregate in great numbers: sporting events, beaches, fairs, concerts, carnivals, and parades.

The State Commerce Department of Maine recently compiled data related to lottery ads placed over a variety of media outlets. The following results track how patrons learned about the lottery:

  • Billboards                    21.6%
  • Radio                          19.8%
  • Aerial Banner               18.3%
  • Television                    15.9%
  • Posters                        14.9%

Aerial banners performed better than television or print ads yet accounted for only 8% of the program's advertising budget. What's more, polled consumers reported the following:

  • 88% remembered seeing the banner fly overhead
  • 79% remembered the product that was advertised
  • 67% remembered at least half of the advertised message

Aerial advertisements come in several formats to fit any product or service at any budget, including:

Flying Billboards

Standard billboards are an effective way to impart a message to potential customers who drive or walk past the advertisement. The sheer size and impact of flying billboards make them even more enticing. Imagine a roadside billboard towed across the sky by an airplane, in full view of thousands upon thousands of spectators. Flying billboards incorporate any message or artwork available in a ground-based billboard, and generally come in sizes that range from 30' – 100' long by 10' – 30' high.

Banner Ads

Banners are eye-catching ads that generally run about 7' high and 50' to 175' long. They condense announcement, sales, and contact information into a bold single line. Banners are perfect for seasonal sales, weekly specials, "happy hour" promotions, or any kind of limited-time advertising that on a traditional billboard would be obsolete almost as soon as it is erected.

3-D Ads

Some aerial advertising companies offer 3-D versions of billboard artwork. A cylindrical shape with a company logo, for example, can offer a wonderful representation of a bottled or canned product.

When budgets are tight and time is of the essence, the evidence is indisputable: business can really take off when ads take off, too.