Your client
flying high in the sky

With the weather warming up across the country and the days longer, Americans will be spending more time relaxing outside, whether at the beach or at sporting events or picnics.

For marketers, it’s a good opportunity to target these folks en masse up in the clouds by means of aerial advertising, and these days it's more than simply towing a banner or writing a few letters in the sky.

To find out how to get your client’s message up in the sky, read on.

This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.

Fast Facts

What
Advertising in the sky using airplanes.

Who
Many companies offer sky advertising using airplanes, and media buyers are encouraged to search out what's available in markets they're targeting. For this article Media Life looked at Arnold Aerial Advertising in New York, Aerial Media Services in Sausalito, Calif., and Aerial Advertising in Los Angeles.

How it works
Aerial advertising has been around a long time, since not long after planes began flying, and its great appeal is that it can reach large numbers of people. People invariably look up into the sky whenever they see a plane towing a sign or writing out letters.

The advertiser needn't worry about getting special permits. Whatever regulations pertain are overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration working with the flight company. But there are a few restrictions that advertisers should keep in mind before considering an aerial campaign, most of which were enacted following 9/11.

Also, planes aren’t allowed to fly over sporting events with 30,000 or more people in attendance from an hour before to an hour after a game. But they can still reach sports crowds tailgating beforehand, be it a college or pro football game or a NASCAR race. And even during the event they can fly in the proximity of the stadium, ensuring they'll be seen by some of the attendees.

And that restriction only applies to sporting events. Planes may still fly directly over concerts and other such events.

Another option for advertisers is skywriting.

It takes a pilot 20 minutes to half an hour to complete a message, and that's 20 minutes to a half an hour that people are looking up to see what he's spelling out.

A newer and more flexible variation of skywriting is what's called sky typing, in which a team of five planes type out longer messages in the sky, up to 25 or 30 characters, and they can do it in just three to four minutes. In sky typing the smoke is emitted in a series of dots. A computer generates the design and electronic signals control the smoke output.

Markets
Advertising in the sky using airplanes is available in virtually every market in the continental U.S.

Numbers
Research suggests a particularly high recall for aerial advertising.

A study by Northeast Marketing, an agency in Yarmouth, Maine, reports that in a 2004 campaign by the Maine State Commerce Department to promote the launch of that state's lottery, an aerial campaign accounted for just 8 percent of the total campaign budget but that 18.3 percent of those aware of the lottery launch said they learned of it through the aerial ads. Aerial was one of five media in the campaign.

How it is measured
Aerial advertising is a mass medium designed to reach as many people as possible, and measuring the reach of a particular effort beyond a wild guess is difficult unless a particular event or locale was targeted, such as an outdoor concert or a particular beach, where attendance figures can be used as a gauge.

What product categories do well
Frequent aerial advertisers include beverages, TV networks, restaurants, health/beauty products, beer/liquor, telecommunications, entertainment and local businesses.

Demographics
Aerial advertising is a mass medium, seen by just about anyone who looks up, but it's possible to reach some demographics by targeting events, such as rock concerts for younger consumers, and locations, say the Hamptons to reach an affluent demographic.

Making the buy
Aerial Media Services offers banner towing as well as skywriting and sky typing. A skywriting campaign can cost as much as $5,000 for one message, while a five-message sky typing campaign can range between $10,000 and $15,000.

Arnold Aerial Advertising tows banners. Pricing varies but production of a 30-by-100 foot banner costs around $10,000, and airtime runs between $500 and $650 an hour.

Aerial Advertising provides banner towing, skywriting and sky typing. The cost of an aerial banner in letters but no images runs around $6,000, while a half day of airtime is around $3,000.

Who’s already using aerial ads
Recent or current aerial advertisers include Barefoot wine, Coppertone, Hawaiian Tropic, Zappos.com, Visa, Hooters, Geico, Pepsi, Miller, AT&T, ESPN Radio, Corona, Nike, Yahoo, Anheuser Busch, Microsoft, State Farm and Sprint.

What they’re saying
“It’s really become a year-round business, where years ago it was primarily in the summertime. And it used to be more for restaurants, bars and happy birthdays, but it’s now mostly corporate stuff.” – Michael Arnold, director at Arnold Aerial Advertising.

Web site info

Aerial Media Services
http://www.aerial-media.com

Arnold Aerial Advertising
http://www.arnoldaerial.com

Aerial Advertising
http://www.aerialadvertising.com

AirSign
http://www.airsign.com

High Exposure Aerial Advertising
http://www.usairads.com

Aviad
http://www.aviad.com

Aerial Services
http://www.aerialservices.org

Aerial Skyvertising
http://www.skyvertising.com

LOOK MEDIA USA 
http://lookmediausa.com/

Skytypers
http://www.skytypers.com/

USSkyAds
http://www.usskyads.com/