Airplanes Becoming Giant, Flying Advertisements

Handing over two bucks for a can of Coke on a long flight is depressing, but it's even more so when you place that soda on a tray table that's covered with a giant advertisement.

It's a bummer, but it's becoming more and more common. Airlines, eager to grab revenue anywhere they can get it, are opening up every square inch of their planes to advertisers, selling space on tray tables, walls, overhead bins, soap dispensers, cocktail napkins and barf bags. If the idea proves successful, it could generate millions of dollars in new revenue.

Ultra-low-cost
Spirit Airlineshas taken the lead, going so far as to launch an entire department that hawks ad space on its planes. In a press release geared toward the advertising community, Spirit's Mile High Media unit asks: "Where can you find 100 percent saturation and an average three-hour gaze time?"

We'll give you one guess.

Spirit promises advertisers that its on-board campaign will deliver
results because only a few advertisers can buy space on each
flight. It means fliers won't be bombarded by pitches from 30 different
products when boarding a plane, but instead will have two or three of
them incessantly drilled into their heads for the duration of the
flight.

For years, in-flight
magazines have carried ads from midrange steakhouses and cheesy
matchmaking services like
It's Just Lunch. The SkyMall catalog is really just a giant marketing brochure, and
it's almost standard operating procedure for flight attendants to get on the mike and peddle co-branded credit cards. Now, Spirit is looking to up the ante on in-flight advertising, plastering its planes with promotional materials just like almost every public space these days, from buses to ballparks.

According to
Advertising Lab, Spirit's new cabin-space-for-rent tactic isn't all that revolutionary for the industry. As early
as 2005, Siberia
Airlines (no, we're not kidding) began offering ad space on nearly
every surface it could find, including carpeting, seats,
tables,
in-flight magazines, flight attendant uniforms, interior walls, shades,
trays, napkins, boarding passes, schedules, overhead bins and
lavatories, not to mention the airline's hanger and office building.

While the ad blitz hasn't really taken off inside U.S. airplanes yet, several companies are looking to wrap the outside of planes in promotional materials. Seattle-based
SuperGraphics, for instance, uses
"proprietary films that expand and contract in response to
temperature," presumably so the marketing messages don't peel
away at 30,000 feet.

Ultimately, it will be the market that determines whether
advertising on airplanes becomes a long-term trend. Commercial aviation
isn't the most responsive industry when it comes to customer
service, but if enough people complain about something, airlines occasionally react (
customer complaintscompelled United Airlines to keep doling out free meals in international coach).

After all, advertisers aren't going to pay to advertise on planes if the flights are half-empty.

Photo: Spirit Airlines/Mile High Media