Banner Towing: An Effective Means Of Advertising

Advertising is the lifeline of most industries and manufacturers, it is the means to reach out to people and entice them to buy the products. There are many forms of advertising, airplane banner through visual media, written media, oral media and audio-visual media. One of the effective methods is the banner towing method of advertising; it is categorized under visual and written media. Banner towing is done using a light weight aero-plane or a helicopter and is commonly referred to as aerial banner towing.
An instinctive reaction of a person is to look up on hearing an aero-plane, this ensure that the banner is seen at least once. It is one of the reasons why it is considered as an effective means of advertisement. Banner towing also ensures that the advertisement reaches multitude of people at a single time. Another aspect of Banner towing is that, the audience is in a relaxed state of mind, away from home and work usually in open spaces like the parks, beaches, golf courses, cruise ships, airplane banners stadiums etc, this makes the audience more receptive to the advertisement.
The Statistics state that 88% of the people do remember seeing the aerial banner even after 30 minutes, 79% actually remember the product advertised on the banner while 67% could recall at least half of the message displayed. This statistics is enough to give an understanding on the effectiveness of this means of advertising.There are many types of Banners that are towed. The banners vary from aerial logo boards, aerial billboards and aerial letter banners.
Aerial Billboards: Aerial billboards are different from the roadside billboards; the billboards are light weight and have large prints to ensure clear viewing of the written print.
Aerial Logo boards: These are large size full color logo of the company along with catchy caption or message. These are also light weight material used to ensure that the banner can be flown.
Aerial Letter Banners: These are usually personal or business related message, banner towing comprising just one or maximum two lines. This type of advertising usually triggers the curiosity of the audience and in turn makes them search and read more about the advertisers. Personal messages like ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Will you marry me’ have an immediate effect on the viewer; it makes the experience unique and special for him or her.
FAA has provided guidelines which need to be followed for the safe operation of banner towing. The FAA guidelines are published in the document titled ‘The Information for Banner Tow Operators’. The guidelines deal with the following subheadings:
Ground Instructions: The fuel systems, aircraft speeds, pre-flight procedures, banner construction, banner setup along with detailed information on the equipment approved to be used are given in the guidelines.The details on equipments include aerial pickup tow-line, tow hitch, grapple hook and cable assembly, mast assembly, rudder guard, safety links, spring keeper, takeoff launch tow-line and many more.
Flight Instructions: Instructions for low altitude flying, which includes the swim-line, maximum performance maneuvers, flying at low-speed, full stalls, and emergency procedures are also dealt with.
Therefore it can be summarized that banner towing is the best and effective form of advertising; flying banner it is possible to reach maximum number of audience in a short span of time.