Advertising is usually a big budget item for many businesses. Most agree that word-of-mouth is the most effective method but it takes time to build up a good foundation of happy customers.

Therefore, some turn to high cost radio and television ads, aimed at a local community. Polls determine the number of people watching and this determines the price of the ad. However, too often channel surfing during breaks in a program cause these numbers to be inflated. Printed matter puts a coupon or offer in hand, that is, if they actually read it. Internet advertising is growing in popularity but may reach a much larger market than a local business wants to pay for.

151 Quick Ideas for Advertising on a Shoestring

One innovative idea which has soared in popularity in high density population areas is aerial advertising. Here’s how it works. A firm is hired to make a large banner displaying a product or service message. They then fly over the area where many people are congregating, pulling the banner behind the plane. This works best when the sky is open, as at a beach, sporting event, concert, or parade. People look up at this distraction, read the ad and remember the product or service. Sound expensive? Actually aerial advertising is more cost effective than one might think.

For much less cost than other traditional advertising methods, aerial advertisers claim that their method reaches more people in a more effective way. Here’s an example: One beach in Miami was advertised to and then, 30 minutes later, 2000 people were surveyed. The survey showed that 88% knew the ad had flown by, 79% recalled what the subject, and 67% could recall at least half of the exact message. Anyone would be hard pressed to say that printed ads, radio or TV could match that effectiveness at just five dollars per thousand people targeted. Those spending significant amounts of their budget on traditional advertising would do well to consider that they can reach as many people with less than half that budget using aerial advertising.

People are curious. They will look up, see the airplane banner, and wonder, “What does it say?” or “Who’s spending a lot of money trying to get us to know about their product?” For as much as seventeen seconds, they are able to read the banner several times. Some will have it memorized in that time. The uniqueness made an impression. They will remember the product.

Environmentalists might balk at the air pollution caused by the plane as it delivers the message. Yet, consider the amount of landfill that results from discarded printed matter, or visual pollution from the plethora of billboards blocking the landscape!

Companies interested in reaching a large number of people in a short period of time with their product or service should consider looking into aerial advertising as a means to this end.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 2:03 am and is filed under Marketing and Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.