Skies Friendly to Banner Business : Towing Operations Proving Popular With Advertisers

The forward pass won’t be the only aerial show at this year’s bowl games.

More and more, small airplanes towing banners--hawking everything from beer to marriage proposals--are competing for the fans’ attention.

“Banner-towing appears to be becoming more popular with national advertisers,” said Peter Riordan, a vice president of the New York-based Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn advertising agency. “It’s something we can have a lot of fun with.”

But Gary West, owner of Gary’s Banners of Temperance, Mich., said banner towing is not all fun and games. A lot of hard work goes into the operation, he said.

West said he is constantly on the phone looking for new business. A typical banner tow costs $195 for six laps around a stadium, he said. Many banners he tows contain personal messages--birthday greetings, love notes and marriage proposals. His commercial customers are mostly auto dealers and brewers.

West, who plans to fly banners at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, said Federal Aviation Administration rules require pilots to get special permission to fly over big events like the bowl games.

“At the Rose Bowl, there are a lot of dignitaries,” he said, explaining the special requirements. “If you’re over the stadium and the engine quits, you’ve got to be able to make an emergency landing.”

Wayne Mansfield, owner of National Aerial Advertising of North Andover, Mass., said he plans to fly banners at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and the Super Bowl in San Diego. The business of towing banners has been steadily increasing over the past 20 years, he said.

Year-Round Business

“Twenty years ago, it used to be a Memorial Day to Labor Day type of thing,” he said. “Now, it’s turning into a year-round business.”

Mansfield said banner towing is even going international. Next year, he said he plans to fly banners in Dublin, Ireland, during a football game between the U.S. Military Academy and Boston College.

Tim Oberdoerster, who works for the FAA in Cleveland, has been towing banners for about 1 1/2 years. He said flying banners takes special skills because the pilots must fly as close to stall-speed as possible to prevent the banners from ripping apart.

He said precision also is needed to pick up banners, most of which is done “on the fly” using hooks similar to those on Navy jets that land on aircraft carriers.

The peak season for banner towing varies according to location, Riordan said.

Along the coasts, banner towers are busiest during the summer, flying up and down beaches. But in the central parts of the country, the most popular time is during the college football season, he said.

West and Oberdoerster said the chances of an accident are remote, despite a crowd of up to seven planes in the limited airspace above a stadium. “Since the FAA doesn’t allow just anyone to fly a banner, there are all kinds of fail-safes,” West said.

Banners as an advertising medium are not meant for hard sell but to reinforce consumer attitudes.

“Efforts like (banner towing) are done because they’ll get the exposure,” said David Pearo, an account executive with Ayer Public Relations in Chicago, which handles the Anheuser-Busch account.