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Expert Advice On Creating An Aerial Ad Campaign For Multiple Markets

May 13, 2014


Expert Advice On Creating An Aerial Ad Campaign For Multiple Markets featured image

Businesses have the power to reach multiple markets by using aerial advertising to appeal to broad audiences.

Aerial advertising provides a great way to be in many places at once, including beaches and special events, and it allows you to distance your brand from the clutter of everyday ads such as magazine spreads, TV and radio commercials. It’s easy to create an aerial campaign with widespread appeal, and it doesn’t take a lot of off-the-wall language or images to grab people’s attention.

If you’re just going for brand awareness, a simple sign with your name or brand is suitable to get the job done. People are going to see your brand’s presence at an event and they’re going to notice you. If you only have an on-ground sign, you’re just like any other sponsor. People might notice, but they’re not going to pay that much attention.

But with aerial media, you’re constantly flying and looping around, creating noise and drawing attention to your brand. People on the ground are going to look up whether they want to or not.

Malibu Aerial Billboard Spring Break

Beach banner advertising campaigns are very popular for aerial advertising with banners on fixed-wing aircrafts. Some campaigns have nine beach markets, including stretches of coast in New York, New Jersey and Florida. That’s why companies often use multiple banners, allowing them to switch banners depending on which audience or area they’re targeting.

A spring break banner, for instance, might use a more adult message and have a social media component versus something you’d fly over a family festival. The type of banner you choose will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish and whom you’re trying to communicate with. Geico does a really good job of tailoring its message to the markets it’s targeting. It has different banners for football games and Supercross motorcycle races, for example. Sporting events in particular are important to target, with the NFL, NCAA football, NASCAR and baseball making up the bulk of aerial campaigns targeting sports fans.

DirecTV Blimp over Alabama Stadium

Or perhaps your brand is ready for the king of aerial advertising – an airship (also known as a blimp) – like DirecTV or Goodyear or Metlife? These sledgehammer brands have incorporated airship advertising into their campaign mix since the 1960’s.

Whatever your choice of aerial media, it’s very easy to design an aerial ad campaign that hits your target demographic. The first step when developing an aerial campaign for multiple markets is to identify your most important markets and the biggest events within those markets. Those are the ones you’ll want to hit throughout the course of the campaign.

From there, build a schedule around those events, being sure to reach all of the target markets in the most sensible and logical way. This is especially important when developing a airship/blimp campaign. You want to minimize downtime as much as possible. One guarantee with blimps is that no matter how much care you put into a schedule, there will be days when you can’t fly due to bad weather.

Try to minimize weather impacts by hitting northern markets in the summer and southern markets in the winter. There’s a balancing act between being at the events you want to target and doing so in a way that maximizes your likelihood of success.

Also, blimps aren’t the fastest form of aerial transportation. On average, they move at about 30 mph, so only plan to travel about 200 miles a day going from city to city. With that kind of restraint, it’s critical to develop the most sensible schedule possible so you don’t miss events or have too much downtime.

All formats of aerial advertising are effective at targeting large groups of people wherever they’re gathered. You’ll find that it’s easy to develop campaigns that hit multiple markets and reach the events most important for your advertising needs.

Want to learn more? Click below for our free guide!