• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, April 9, 2009

As fans gather for the Colorado Rockies' home opener this afternoon against the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, a biplane will fly over Denver's Coors Field, towing a banner reading: "This is the closest thing we have to a private jet."

It's Lakewood, Colo.-based FirstBank's way of saying it is fiscally conservative.

The latest in a series of a media-specific ad campaigns for the bank, this aerial message is intended to support FirstBank's positioning. Says Jonathan Schoenberg, creative director of TDA Advertising & Design in Boulder, Colo.: "They're not into extravagances. They haven't taken any bailout money. And they're doing great."

During the winter, FirstBank put mobile banking ads at Colorado ski resorts that said: "Bank in your ski mask without getting arrested." Over the holidays, backlit posters placed in shopping malls provided some really cheap gift-giving options, such as reprinting a "homemade preserves" label to place on a store-bought jam jar. Ad copy explained: "We're here to help you save."

And last fall, a trompe l'oeil graphic on Denver-area streetlamps made them appear to be old-fashioned pneumatic tubes. Their message read: "Mobile banking. Available everywhere."

Today's biplane will fly over Coors Field from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. MT (game starts at 2:10), then over metro Denver for another hour. FirstBank is a division of FirstBank Holding Company, Lakewood, Colo. -- privately held and majority owned by its management and employees. It is Colorado's largest locally owned bank, with assets of $8 billion and additional locations in California and Arizona.