US Airways will be selling ad space on its air sickness bags beginning in September. With brutal margins, volatile demand, and rising oil costs, it’s no wonder that airlines are looking for innovative ways to increase revenue. I’d rather they sell ad space around my seat than cut small, worthless amenities such as free peanuts like some airlines have done recently, or charge me for an inedible sandwich.
But as desperate as airlines are to improve the economics of air travel, marketers are just as desperate to somehow find a captive audience somewhere in the world that cannot move, change the channel, be interrupted by someone, make a phone call, receive a phone call, leave the room, get off the bus, change stations, fast-forward through the ad, etc. They may just have found the single place in the world where all these conditions can be attained. Too bad the single prerequisite for the ad’s visibility is nausea.