I thought of this over 7 years ago.

Back when I lived in NYC I would travel the trains regularly. Like any New Yorker. In the late 90's the subway trains made a switch in the way they placed advertisements in the cars. They switched from a cardboard with a plastic strip holding it up to a tamper proof plastic. It was mainly designed for vandals that would take the plastic clips and use them to lock doors in between subway cars or even flip the advertisements and "tag" graffiti on them.

In any case when I FIRST saw that my initial reaction was wow this is really cool looking. The ads were brighter, the material they used was lit from behind and I thought DAMN this would be PERFECT on an airplane so airlines could get ad dollars. Unfortunately I was too young to try and market the idea but someone else has.

LONDON, Aug. 26 — “Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their upright and locked position — and start reading the advertisement that is staring you in the face.”

O.K., you won’t actually hear that last part as the flight attendants prepare an aircraft for landing. But as airlines look for new sources of revenue to offset rising fuel costs, more carriers are turning planes into marketing vehicles, installing advertising in hard-to-miss places.

Several American carriers, including US Airways and AirTran, recently started selling advertisements on napkins or stickers that appear on open tray tables. Over the summer, Ryanair, the European low-cost carrier, has gone further, installing advertising panels on the covers of the overhead luggage compartments and on the backs of closed tray tables.

Ryanair and the companies behind this advertising say it offers marketers an effective way to reach consumers who have cash to spend and who are increasingly difficult to influence via traditional media like television and newspapers.

InviseoMedia, which sold the seatback advertisements to Ryanair and to another European low-cost carrier, Germanwings, says the system provides an average of 40 minutes of “dwell time” during a typical flight. In other words, the only ways for passengers to avoid the advertisements, which are placed behind tamper-proof plastic shields, is to open the tray or get up and stretch their legs. And when they do that, they are confronted with the advertisements on the overhead bins, which are being sold by a separate company, Fourth Edition.

Although their plan is a bit different from what I imagined back then its the same concept. Ads to fliers that aren't doing much of anything other then staring at the back of a seat awaiting their arrival.

Good idea. Too bad I didn't get it out there first. LOL