About Airads Worldwide Aerial Advertising - History

Following the initial testing of the Aerial Billboard in 1985, Milo was anticipating a big change to the industry he helped create in the mid 1940's out of a small grass strip on the New Jersey shoreline.

Milo, originally responsible for coining the term "Aerial Advertising" in 1947 had for many years a concept for a full service Aerial Advertising "agency" he felt needed to be implemented soon. Milo needed just one thing he didn't have, the right person to take his vision to the next level and beyond.

Forward to August 1990:
Milo was contracted to fly a banner for Kawasaki Motor Corporations Jet Ski® brand watercraft by twenty-four year old, Joel J who had worked with the Japanese watercraft manufacturer since the Jet Ski's release in 1977, at age 11. The Jet Ski® will evolve to be one of the world's most predominate, protected and recognized recreational brands in history. It turns out it was not the first time the two had actually spoke. Joel, an avid Goodyear Blimp fanatic was a fixture around the Oakland Airports North Field since he was five years old, spending the Summer months with the blimp and its crew along with frequent drop-ins to Milo's hangar to remind him of his desires to go for ride in the open cockpit bi-plane someday. Once Milo figured out who he was speaking with, the "crazy blimp kid", Milo finally extended an invitation for him to come down to the airport one of these days and go for that ride. The following day Joel showed up at Milo's hangar, ready to go. Milo, slightly amused by Joel's continued tenacity agreed to giving Joel the ride if he would agree to sit down afterwards and listen to some ideas that he had. Joel agreed and the two went for a short flight.

Following the flight, Milo and Joel spent the next few hours discussing ideas and concepts that would ultimately mold the way aerial advertising was labeled, bought, sold and executed throughout the world.

Milo had finally found the right person. He knew at the time, there couldn't be a more motivated, educated and qualified person to understand and develop his current structure and take it to that next level and beyond. He thought, "Here is a twenty year old guy who not only lived and breathed blimps since he was five but was enveloped, professionally within a major corporate marketing project since he was eleven. He also started flying at age fifteen. The absolute perfect candidate to convince corporations around the world that aerial advertising deserves to be a viable, mainstream media buy.

Joel was given the instructions to set-up from scratch, the first full service aerial advertising media buying and consulting company that would offer all forms of the medium. Additionally, the company would also have to structure in essence it's own competitors. Without them, Joel would never be able to achieve the viability that Milo was ultimately seeking.

If there is a similar company offering similar services anywhere in the world to this day, there is a very good chance that Airads played a major role in its initial existence. Based on some of the tactics that were used in structuring these entities, it's a rare occasion that any of them will acknowledge our contributions. Aerial advertising and its overall history is not that difficult to research. There are four banner towing and skywriting companies that have roots tracing all the way back to the 1940's. Everyone else, falls under the "umbrella" of one of the originals. All four of the original companies are currently operating with only one of them still fully operational by an original family member. Company number two was the first banner towing and skywriting company purchased by a traditional billboard entity in 2003. A deal that Airads played a major initial role in. Company number three which essentially manufactures a large portion of the banner towing and skywriting equipment for the remaining local operators throughout the world was acquired in 2009 by company number four, Airads Worldwide.

Since our inception, we have worked with hundreds of companies, large and small to implement this exciting and captivating medium into their overall media planning and budgeting mix. We have also helped to expand aerial advertising and its benefits to over thirty countries throughout the world that had never seen it prior.

In 1991, airads.com became one of the world's first registered web domain names and was the first out-of-home advertising entity to have web presence. In 1992, Joel officially coined the phrase "aerial media" which is widely used throughout the industry today.

As of August 2014, Milo and Joel along with the rest of the Airads Worldwide team continue to create and execute some of the world's most memorable aerial advertising campaigns with emphasis on flying much larger ad-sites than before and offering these ad-sites in a more fixed based format expanding to even more countries throughout the globe.