You Can’t Turn the Channel on These Advertisements : Aviation: Airplanes pulling banners along New Jersey shore are a good way ‘to reach a lot of people in a short amount of time.’

On a sunny afternoon, miles from the beaches at Avalon, Stone Harbor and Cape May, pilot Kevin Laufer dons his earplugs and guides a 150-horsepower tail-dragger to a noisy liftoff from an isolated grass airstrip.

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He soars to about 300 feet, circles back and then swoops in on the strip he just left. A grappling hook dangles from the tail of the plane, catches a rope that has been strung horizontally six feet above the ground and yanks it skyward, trailing a 100-foot-long banner.

One by one, the five-foot tall letters right themselves behind Laufer’s plane as the banner unfurls. The plane heads east bearing its message:

“La Costa, .75 Beer, 1.25 Drinks and Shots.”

Within minutes, this aerial advertisement will pass by the eyes of thousands of sunbathers, boaters, fishermen and porch-sitters in shore towns along the southeastern tip of New Jersey.

“It seems like it registers in their head,” said Anthony Milano, manager of La Costa Liquor Store and Lounge in Sea Isle City, which paid for the ad.

Like cold beer, hot sand and Garden State Parkway traffic tie-ups, banner-towing planes are fixtures of summer life at the New Jersey shore.

Chugging along the coastline, 500 feet up, they hawk beer, soft drinks, clothing, bars, restaurants, furniture, automobiles and other products to captive audiences unreachable by more traditional media.

“It’s a way to reach a lot of people in a short amount of time,” said Andre Tomalino, general manager of Paramount Air Service, Laufer’s employer.

“It’s not only getting more popular, it’s getting more recognized by big companies as a viable medium,” said David O’Brien, president of O’Brien Aviation in Lakewood, one of the state’s biggest aerial advertisers.

“Years ago, Noxzema was the only national name. Now, it’s not unusual to get any kind of client advertising by air. If you want to hit them with a message, the only sure-fire way is with an airplane,” he said.

Paramount was founded in 1945 by Tomalino, a former World War II glider. It has 37 employees by summer, none in winter.

Up to 60 times a day, lightweight, one-seat planes roll out of the olive green hangar and repeat Laufer’s ritual. Paramount has 12 planes; eight are in use every day from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

To run an ad from Cape May Point to Asbury Park, it costs $1,035 per flight on a weekday and $1,134 on weekends for up to nine flights a day. Shorter trips are also available. Banner assembly is $4 per letter.

O’Brien Aviation, founded in 1976, includes a flight school and charter service.

“We started out with a roll of fabric and a couple of poles,” said Rene O’Brien, the company’s vice president. Now, O’Brien Aviation has 25 planes, eight of which are used to tow banners.

On a typical summer weekday, 10 banners are flown; on a weekend day, it’s up to 40.

“This weekend starts the rat race,” Rene O’Brien said on a Thursday as she searched for an “A” in the former parachute-rigging shed the company uses to store sign materials.

She sews the letters herself with a fabric known as ripstop nylon--the same material used in making sails--and fastens them to interconnected fiberglass rods.

Soon the banner, which has been laid in the sand outside the shed, begins taking shape: “Crabs Claw.” It’s a restaurant.

The most important variable in this kind of advertising is weather. If the sun’s not out, the beaches won’t be packed. If the beaches aren’t packed, not enough people will see the banners.

“We give them [advertisers] a 100% weather guarantee,” said David O’Brien. “We make the decision for them. If it’s not a good day, we’ll postpone until it is.”

Advertisers swear by airborne ads.

“I’ve tested it. . . . When the weather’s good and people are on the beaches, everybody looks up at those airplanes,” said former lifeguard Bob Hirshfield, owner of Bells Apparel in Point Pleasant Beach.

“If I run an airplane in late morning or early afternoon, they will come in. They’ll say, ‘I saw your airplane.’ We sell a lot of swimwear here. It really hits a specific market,” he said.

Beer companies, bars and restaurants may be the most frequently advertised products, but they’re not the only ones. Religious organizations, labor unions and political campaigns use the planes too.

One banner headed to a beach near you this summer has a decidedly atypical message: “Save Sex for Marriage.”

It is sponsored by Family Life Educational Foundation in Philadelphia, a not-for-profit group that promotes chastity.