The Newest Space for Ads: Airline Tray Tables

Harried business travelers seeking refuge in first class from a constant barrage of commercials may soon have to look elsewhere. A New York-based marketing company, Brand Connections, is planning to put ads for its clients on first-class seat-back trays on US Airways’s domestic flights.Under pressure to squeeze out extra dollars wherever they can, airlines have begun using the interior of planes to sell advertising. America West, which merged with US Airways in 2005, began selling such ads in coach more than two years ago. But some observers say placing them in first class might dilute the cachet of luxury and business travel.It is all in how it’s done, the chief executive officer of Brand Connections, Brian Martin, said. Several other airlines are monitoring how US Airways passengers react before deciding whether to follow suit, he said, though he declined to identify those carriers.“It works if the ads are relevant and the creative is well done,” he said. “It’s the untargeted ads that annoy.”The commercials, for companies such as Microsoft, Saab, and Bose — whose ads for noise-canceling headphones are particularly well targeted at passengers stuck next to a wailing baby — are embedded into tray tables through a patented lamination and heat seal process.One ad, for an immune-system booster, Cold-fX, doubles as a board game that passengers can play using a quarter or a pretzel. (Should one be stranded on board for 10 hours, this could be a good way to pass the time.)US Airways estimates that 70 million coach passengers have seen the ads so far and that up to 6.4 million first-class passengers could see them each year.But Mr. Martin said he wants to use the seatback trays to reach the “demographic” his clients want most: busy, affluent professionals, specifically those who make purchasing decisions for companies. It helps that they would be a captive audience for the average two-hour flight. Brand Connections’s research team found that back-seat trays were more efficient for advertising than in-flight magazines and napkins.Still, first class is different, a road warrior who runs the popular Upgrade: Travel Better blog, which chronicles the travails of the travel industry, Mark Ashley, said.“A lot of people will think placing ads in first class is déclassé,” Mr. Ashley, who logged 75,000 miles traveling the world last year, said. “I think it signals that US Airways is not trying to position its firstclass travel as a premium product.”A vice president of sales and marketing at US Airways, Travis Christ, said he believes that firstclass passengers will accept the ads, but he acknowledged the risk of losing the special feel of firstclass travel.“Our customers will let us know,” Mr. Christ said. “If there is a backlash, we can change it.” Besides, he said, unlike many European carriers that splash ads on overhead bins, “we are not turning our planes into flying subways.”Part of making such ads more palatable to first-class passengers will be the products advertised, Mr. Martin, who founded his company in 2001 after working as a marketing manager for the New Jersey pharmaceutical giant Wyeth, said.The ads have to be upscale, mostly for business-tobusiness products and services, Mr. Christ said, like those of companies that also place ads in business publications. US Airways will take a commission on the ads Brand Connections sells, but it has the right to pull the plug on the project if passengers react negatively.That the ads were an innovation of America West, a discount airline, comes as no surprise to Mr. Ashley.“A discount airlines’s ethos is creeping into traditional old-style airlines,” he said, pointing out that US Airways’s stock market ticker, LCC, stands for “low cost carrier.” And this is not the first time the airline has pioneered ways to cut costs or increase revenue, he said, explaining that America West was the first airline to get rid of complimentary in-flight meals.With only 30% of the first-class cabin on a typical US Airways flight actually paid for — the rest are upgrades from coach — the airline is in that way a discount airline.Mr. Christ made no apologies for his airline’s decision to introduce the ads in first class, given the current environment of low fares and high costs.“We have to look at alternative ways to stay in business,” Mr. Christ said.

The Newest Space for Ads: Airline Tray Tables

The Newest Space for Ads: Airline Tray Tables

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