Airplane Overhead Bins Latest Billboard Space

N E W   Y O R K, July 30, 2000 -- Advertising agencies are always seeking open spaces to display ads, and if the space happens to be in front of a “captive” audience, all the better.

If that audience happens to be somewhat upscale, such as air travelers, that’s even more of a plus.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Advent Advertising Corp. believes it has a winning ticket with a method to put advertising on the doors of aircraft overhead bins. It has signed on Vanguard Airlines Inc., also of Kansas City, to launch its Advent Airads.

The agency is in the process of installing the ads on all of Vanguard’s 14 planes and also is in talks with Sun Country Airlines of Minneapolis, said Marck de Lautour, Advent’s 23-year-old director of marketing.

“We digitally record the color of the locker bins and formulate inks that are 30–40 percent the color likeness of the bins,” he said. “When the ads actually get put up… they’re very soft and subtle. At the same time, they’re very visible.”

The ads on Vanguard’s Boeing 737-200 aircraft show the airline’s V logo and its name in pale gray against the gray background of the overhead bin. “It kind of eases passengers into seeing messages on the overhead locker bins,” de Lautour said in a telephone interview.

Throwing Out Catch Phrases

The agency, which until now has focused on speciality and promotional advertising, has just started to contact prospective advertisers. In the meantime, it anticipates the Vanguard messages will remain in place for the next 3–4 months.

Since it took Advent nearly two years to develop the process, which is patented, and win Federal Aviation Authority approval to place the ads on the luggage bins, it can wait a while longer to sign up advertisers.

“We don’t have a plane of our own obviously, and this is one way to let advertisers see what they’re going to buy,” said de Lautour.

He said the ads will be designed mostly for brand recognition. “It’s basically catch phrases. We’re looking at companies that want to advertise their Web sites or new product launches. It’s very soft and subtle.”

Danielle Moulder, national sales and marketing manager for Vanguard, said people at the airline initially were skeptical of placing the ads in the airplanes. “When you think of overhead bins, you think of a bus, or a subway and in-your-face marketing,” she said. “I can’t wait for people to see it and realize how subtle it is.”

Moulder said she and other Vanguard executives anticipated that the airline’s cabin crew would be opposed to ads on the overhead bins. But she said they were surprised. “Flight attendants can be your worst enemy when it comes to marketing on a plane, but all of them love it.”

No Escape

However, one marketing specialist was appalled at the prospect of seeing ads on the inside of airplanes. “I cannot believe it. People will never be able to look anywhere without seeing an ad soon,” said Jack Trout, a brand marketing consultant at Trout Partners, in Westport, Conn. “Will they never let up? Where can they put ads next? How about the bathrooms on airplanes? They haven’t gotten there yet.”

De Lautour said his firm, which is independently owned, plans a maximum of 10 advertisers per plane, with their ads rotated throughout an airline’s entire fleet.

“One company cannot buy one plane,” he said. “The minimum purchase is one pair of doors on every plane in the fleet.”

Prices are calculated on a per passenger basis. For example, to buy a pair of doors on each of Vanguard’s 14 aircraft, it would cost about $5,600 per month, or $200 per door, based on the airline’s 1.5 million passengers annually.

“If you treat each door as a billboard, you’re basically paying under $200 a month for a billboard,” said de Lautour.

But if the firm signs up United Airlines, with its 110 million passengers and huge fleet, the rates would rise accordingly. Advent says it will allocate 60 percent of the revenue to the airlines, since they own the real estate.