Airline Flying Isn’t Like a Bus … It is a Bus
By Robert Mark on September 17th, 2008Well, Spirit Airlines has finally gone and done it.
They’ve taken what used to be a really nice product – I flew them often between ORD and TPA until they dropped the service – and turned it into the 
closest thing to a city bus possible by adding on-board advertising. Yes folks, now you too can stare at a Crest poster, or a Nike ad or even a splash for the latest Batman film for three hours, or longer if they can keep you locked up that long.
When I heard that Spirit was calling its new program Mile High Media I thought that too was a joke. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at the Mile High Club on Wikipedia.
I suppose no one should be surprised at this when other airlines are pulling every rabbit out of their hats to secure fresh revenue sources. Certainly Spirit is not the first airline to use their airplanes as billboards. A number of European carriers have been using it for years, except their adverts are on the outside of the airplane. Somehow, I guess we’ll all need to get used to adverts on the back of the seats, on window shades, overhead bins, tray tables and drink carts.
So have the Spirit folks lost their minds or have become truly savvy marketers? Perhaps this attempt at marketing integration will take customer’s minds off the lawsuit Spirit pilots filed against the company last week. Only you can decide.
The fact remains that Spirit has broken some new ground in airline marketing, even if I don’t particularly care for it. I give United a week before they take the bait. And seriously, how could any potential advertisers pass on this … “Where else can you find 100 percent saturation with a targeted captive audience that will be actively engaged by your ad for an average of three hours?”
Oh somebody save me. I wonder if Spirit will sell sleep shades on board too.
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September 21st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Doesn’t matter what they put on the backs of seats to me. Just another product I will NEVER buy.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:33 am
RyanAir has ads inside the planes, too. Looks just like a city bus; advertisements (for RyanAir, of all things- seems somewhat contradictory) on the overhead storage compartment doors.