How Can Skytyping Get Your Message to the Public?

The sky itself has been a successful surface on which to advertise in unique ways. Two of these methods are banner ads and skywriting. A banner ad is a streamer or billboard that is pulled behind an airplane or helicopter over a mass of people. Skywriting contains no printed material but is a message written in smoke against the sky.

Skywriting involves injecting a paraffin oil into the exhaust of the airplane. This causes a dense, white smoke to form. When it is turned on and off at the right times, this results in letters being formed and, from the ground, a message conveyed. The letters are a mile tall at times, and somewhere between 7000 to 17,000 feet in the air.

A unique form of skywriting is called, among other things, skytyping. Five or six planes fly in unison over the selected area. A computer on the lead plane decides when each plane is to make smoke and for how long. The result is a series of dashes in a straight line. When viewed from the ground, these dots or dashes of smoke together form parts of letters and eventually an entire word or sentence, much like the dots on a computer screen form a word or picture.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each technique. The advantages to skytyping are as follows: The message is made much quicker and thus can be longer. While it takes a plane 60 to 90 seconds to form one letter in skywriting, the letters are formed in a few seconds with skytyping. This means the entire message is still visible when it is finished. With skywriting, a long message will mean the first letters have drifted away by the time the message is finished.

Also skywriting requires extra skill to maneuver a plane to form letters. He is somewhat of an artist making the message uniform and attractive. On the other hand, the skytyping pilots only need to fly in a straight line. The computer decides when to make the white smoke that will form into letters.

On the other hand, skywriting can be done with one or two planes which is much cheaper than hiring a whole fleet of planes to make one message. Geico insurance is famous for the skytyping messages, forming their name with dotted lines in the sky.

Both methods have things in common. First, the preparation is simple. No need for printing or color design is necessary. The skywriting pilot plans how to write his message backwards so the people below see it frontwards. The skytyping pilots simply enter the message in the computer and let it do the work. Second, the message in both cases is environmentally friendly. The paraffin smoke is harmless to nature.

Skywriting, skytyping, and aerial advertising have something in common as well. All of them use the canvas of the sky, presenting their message to an audience without competition. Dollar for dollar on skywriting costs, advertisers are learning that this is an effective way to make their message known.