Why tray table advertising aboard airplanes could send your brand’s image soaring

By: Gwen Moran

Siamak Taghaddos was strapped in his airplane seat on a shuttle from Boston to New York when he lowered the tray table in front of him. Instead of the traditional putty-colored surface he expected, the tray top revealed a colorful, imprinted surface with a commercial message.

The CEO and co-founder of GotVMail Communications in Needham, Mass., thought this would be a perfect place to let prospective customers know about his company’s telephone services. “Our main customers are a very affluent set of entrepreneurs who travel a lot,” says Taghaddos. “If our ad was [on airplane tray tables], they would see it and realize what we can do for them.”

Last year, New York City marketing firm Brand Connections licensed the patented system — which wraps tray-table surfaces with a removable printed plastic sheet — and began showcasing it on one major U.S. airline. Each sheet includes one to three advertisements occasionally mixed with editorial from content partners. The program will be rolled out on a European carrier later this year, says Brand Connections CEO Brian F. Martin. He expects to add another domestic airline next year.

Advertisers can make a national buy, which Martin says produces 20 million impressions per month, or they can purchase a portion of the fleet. Typically, he says, advertisers buy a quarter of the fleet for a few months at a time. GotVMail purchased trays for two months on the entire shuttle fleet, which makes daily stops in Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C. He estimates that the $300,000 buy netted him about 5 million impressions. While advertisers can buy a portion of the tray table space, “each plane is category-exclusive to an advertiser,” says Martin. So companies don’t need to worry about appearing next to their competition.

Airlines have long been an effective marketplace for the well-heeled, with opportunities that include in-flight magazine advertisements and video placements, says Nancy Michaels, founder of GrowYourBusinessNetwork.com and co-author of Off-the-Wall Marketing Ideas: Jumpstart Your Sales without Busting Your Budget. “If well done, [tray table advertising] might be quite useful in terms of capturing the undivided attention of passengers who can afford air travel, which is not so easy these days,” she says.