It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s A…Blimp!

I got a call the other morning from Gin Bottle Garvey who told me he just saw a blimp fly by his office window. I told him it was a little early to be hitting the paint. But then a week later my son Jake called from Boston after he spotted the same thing.

 

Turns out this big floater is promoting Dick’s Sporting Goods’ new interactive store concept called Dick’s House of Sport. It’s been flying over major sporting events, concerts, and fairs and generating a lot of chatter when people get a sight of the thing. Looks like it’s working—Dick’s has had record sales since that windbag hit the sky. Not many retailers today can say that.

At the agency, we used to do a lot more aerial advertising, the classic plane-pulling-the-banner routine. People always got a kick out of it. Except for one time when it nearly sunk us.

We handled Great Barrington Savings Bank for years. One summer we were doing an aerial campaign around the Berkshires. The tow banner on the plane read, “Quick, Name A Great Bank.” Gerry Grant, our usual pilot, called in sick one day and his replacement was some potato farmer from Idaho who didn’t know Bo Diddley about the Berkshires. Midway through his route, the jackass spotted what he thought was a big family picnic. So he dipped down real low and flew back and forth over the crowd about a dozen times. He thought he was doing us a big favor. Except it wasn’t a family picnic. It was a memorial service for Leonard Bernstein. The Boston Symphony was playing and there were famous speakers lined up to eulogize the late maestro.

With the plane darting back and forth overhead, nobody could hear a word. But we heard about it quick. The headline on the front page of the Berkshire Eagle read, “Local Bank Buzzes and Disrupts Bernstein Memorial Service.” The aerial attack didn’t fly with the client either. I can’t remember how we got out of that one.

Keep your dukes up.


 

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