YOU HAVE ONE OF THE GREATEST, HIGH-PROFILE BILLBOARDS AROUND!! CAN YOU ADVERTISE FOR US?
No....and Yes!
The Aerial Advantage
Captive audience
Everyone looks up
Most enjoy the rare spectacle
Moving billboard
You're talk of the town!
Great for events, grand openings, parades, wedding proposals, birthdays
Exactly what we can and cannot do gets regulatory complicated and too boring in detail for here.
Paramotors and Powered Parachutes are either Ultralight or Light Sport category aircraft which forbid even Sully from commercial passenger carry or flights for hire (other than flight instruction).
There are also FAA regulations regarding banner towing operations, and waivers / special permits available depending upon the aircraft used and operations proposed.
There are a few other aerial advertising means which are simple and less regulated.
We have discount contractors available in larger aircraft.
In regard to paramotors and powered chutes, they are great advertising platforms still in development, and are commercially advertising outside the U.S.
FAA regulations presently limit our options. By paramotor or powered parachute, the easiest advertising method is flight of a custom wing. We have vendors able to customize art of any kind for the top and bottom of wings. However, we can only accept sponsors / donors at this time. We cannot bill you per flight or make promises in regard to location, number, and timing o such flights. Therefore, paying $2,500 to $5,000 and up for a wing with uncertainty on advertising ROI is not for every sponsor. Alternatively, you'd pay that for about 1 to 2 banner flights brought in from out of area. Skywriting in smoke also costs around $10k to $30k.
Cheapest is custom banner tow by paramotor (~$200 to $1,000), but that is tricky to set up COMMERCIALLY with FAA. We are researching the issue and exploring what might be special permitted. Nothing forbids a sponsored relation, however. For example, you buy us a new wing to study, evaluate, and flight test. It carries your advertising. You can rent our aircraft and even learn to fly your own advertising flights.
By paramotor and chutes, we just cannot promise you specific flights, times, routes nor link compensation to the flight. You can join our flight club, buy and customize your own wing, rent our aircraft, learn to fly banners (under our training program), and either fly your own wings and banners privately as a business owner....or have a club pilot do so. You can even strip your logo from the wing and resell the wing later so cost is about 45% reduced. Nobody can take compensation for the flight. Not even you as the wing and business owner; Any advertising has to be incidental to the business and unlinked to particular flights. You're here because seeing our PPGTube in the air, right? Nobody pays us to fly that. It's just logo and art on our wing. It does advertise our website and business, but we do other business. Whether we kite the wing on the ground, hang it as a banner on a building, or fly it are all possibilities. Whether we fly an American flag banner or our own logo...all perfectly legal. We can even put your own logos on our wings or banners in sponsored relation. We just cannot take direct and flight-specific compensation from others to aerial advertise or commercial passenger carry by Ultralight and Light Sport category aircraft. Alternatively, you could give us a few shares in your business and then we are part owners advertising our own business, but that is not necessary so long as all flying specifics are disconnected from compensation.
Why is FAA fussy? Commercial flying adds business pressure to the pilot decision making process. One of the most lethal aspects of aviation is called "Destinationitis" -- trying to fly somewhere or do something when you really shouldn't. Ultralight pilots often have little training and license. Their aircraft are not heavily maintenance regulated. Many are plain cowboys and banner towing has long been the bottomfeeder domain of General Aviation. You will have every yahoo buzzing your home with an Uber ad if not regulated. Light Sport aircraft are in a higher category and more regulation. Larger aircraft factory certified, passing FAA flight test standards, upkept to FAA maintenance standards, and with more advanced pilot ratings tends to assure public safety. As business pressure is added in, the heavier aircraft tends to deal with weather better. More advanced pilot ratings usually ensure better decision making and less problems. All flying has its risks, and business pressure escalates it. Towing banners adds risk -- accidents on takeoff, entanglement, engine strain, dropped objects over crowds, too large a banner causing crash, etc. Advertising under a wing is less risky and less of a concern to FAA, but still has the business pressure factor.
Alternatively, we have FAR 107 commercial drone operators available, and some interesting platforms. For example, instead of purchasing a PPG or PPC wing we don't really need, for the same price we could build you a custom blimp or flying saucer and train your staff.... or we can fly that. Keep in mind a 15 foot blimp has a long time available in the sky and, down at lower altitudes closer to a crowd, a small blimp with advertising often appears like a full-sized one.
Hot air balloon contractors, moored kites, moored balloons, tethered drones, and lasers are also other options falling under a different set of regulations. We can, for example, build you a larger drone copter and hoist a banner up all day long over a site. If the drone is not too heavy, it is FAR 107 compliant. If we rigged a gigantic copter to a chain and carried a huge banner aloft.....technically, that is not a drone or manned aircraft, but a moored aircraft under different regulations.
Many are the ways.
Contact us with your visibility needs and we can propose something on the lowest cost, safest, legal, most suitable direction for getting your advertising in the air.