What do you get when you combine drones and advertising? Hint: Combining drones and selfies had lead to an increasingly popular trend called ‘dronies.’
The logical answer then, is dronevertising.
As you can imagine, spellcheck doesn’t love this word but Russian creative agency Hungry Boys is confident it will catch on and is using the term to define their latest service.
Hungry Boys recently used 10 drones to fly real-life banner ads in Moscow’s financial district during lunchtime for the Wokker chinese noodle takeaway restaurant.
And, of course, they caught it all on video:
Said Alex Gisak, co-founder of Wokker: “We have never used or will we ever use traditional channels for communication. Since our inception we have always looked for new ways to help promote our food and sending our message through the skies is certainly different. It is marketing at the right time and in the right place. Hungry Boys have captured the fun and forward looking essence of the brand. Who knows, maybe we’ll start delivering our meals in the future this way.”
This is the first instance of explicit dronevertising in Russia, but it is far from the first time a restaurant has used a drone to get the word out.
In June, Russia pizza shop Dodo Pizza used its appropriately named Dodo Drone to deliver pizzas to hungry passersby on the go. While delivery was the goal, the publicity was inherent.
And publicity stunts like this are not exclusive to Russia.
Philadelphia-based Dronecast began using drone for advertising in April and, despite disapproval from the FAA, business has been booming. And in India, drones are being used to fly banners promoting political candidates during election season.
So it’s safe to say that even though digital banner ads are disappearing, physical banner ads are taking off.
Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com