• International Herald Tribune, Monday, August 27, 2007 10:45 AM

As airlines constantly look for new sources of revenue, more are turning their planes into marketing vehicles. While some American carriers, including US Airways and AirTran, have been selling ads on napkins and stickers on tray tables, one European airline -- Ryanair -- has taken the idea even further. The low-fare carrier is now installing ad panels on the covers of luggage compartments and the backs of closed tray tables.

Ryanair says the ads offer marketers an effective way to reach rich consumers who are difficult to influence via more traditional media. InviseoMedia, the firm which sold the seat-back ads to Ryanair and another European low-fare carrier, claims they provide an average of 40 minutes of "dwell time" during a typical flight. The only way passengers can avoid the ads is to open the tray or leave their seat.

"It's a good medium, a good audience and they're captive to some extent," says Dominic Stead, chief executive of Inviseo. Among the advertisers onboard are Microsoft, DaimlerChrysler and Hewlett-Packard. But some marketers, while coveting the audience, are also worried about consumer blow-back. "A lot of brands are pretty skeptical about being associated with in-flight advertising," says Ben Cunningham, a media planner at Vizeum, part of Aegis.

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