Santa Monica, California – Hoovy, the leading UAV advertising company, is launching the Advatar, a new type of UAV aimed for advertising. The Advatar has eight engines and a lean design that provides tremendous power to fly the biggest possible banners, while staying in the sky longer. The Advatar is equipped with the latest safety features and sensors, such as a sensor that measures velocity of winds at different altitudes to allow the Advatar to position at the ideal height. The company launched the Advatar on Indiegogo (http://igg.me/at/hoovy) on June 2nd and is seeing a lot of traction.
The drones that are currently in the market are designed to fly a camera only -- none of them are designed to fly a banner. The Advatar always gathers a large crowd who take pictures of the advertisement, ask questions, and who are very fascinated by the concept. We get people to look at ads -- making advertisement fun and engaging.
About Hoovy
Hoovy makes advertising cool again by combining cutting edge drone technology and individualized banners to get their customers great exposure. Eugene Stark, CEO of Hoovy, explains that “little innovation has been seen in the outdoor advertising field in the past century and Hoovy is seeking to change that.” Hoovy is already bringing success to clients by flying their banners in the sky. For now Hoovy is only flying locally, but it is using the Indiegogo platform to sell drones nationwide and to subcontract those companies to do national campaigns for its clients. http://igg.me/at/hoovy
Comments
Always claim it to be a GAME CHANGER (catch phrase that should catch on fire and burn out)
You have to forgive our sour reactions, but we by now are getting used to seeing a lot of people riding the drone hype making outrageous claims, raising ridiculous sums in fundraiser on said claims etc.
And while you concept is fully possible from a technical viewpoint, it hardly seems like an efficient solution. A blimp on a wire for example as no flight time limitations and would probably catch just as much attention. And if you attach the wire to the blimp via the banner, it would also always hang straight down even when it is blowing.
Hi Eugene - I must admit I didn't realise that the bloke quoted in the excerpt was the author of the post. Had I noticed this initially I would have tempered my comments a bit more.
Looking over your campaign raised a long list of questions in my mind, such as: Aren't you required to stay at least 30-metres clear of people when operating these things? How visible is the type on that banner really going to be at a distance of 30-metres? What good is a 15-minute flight time? What is the cost to insure such a venture? What is the labour cost component? Why aren't the rotors shielded? Why doesn't it have a powered tether? What's with the projector concept? Where is the projector screen?
Based on your comments above describing how you have deployed the technology so far I wonder why you would even bother with a drone in this application. Why not a tethered balloon? Would a balloon not be cheaper, safer, less risk, more versatile, require an order of magnitude less labour to deploy for any length of time and, most importantly, be more profitable? Considering the way you propose to structure your network, wouldn't a balloon potentially offer your backers a more bankable proposition with far fewer unknowns and, in turn, create a far more scalable business for you?
Hey guys - thank you for all the comments and questions. First let me make it clear that we never fly above people. Most of our flights are during Live Events and we usually hover above our client's promotional tent. In the event when we're not hovering above a tent we hover above a landmark, such as a fountain, or we block off an area where people could not walk. Second, although 15 minutes of flight time is not unheard of, when you attach a banner to a drone it's very difficult to achieve that result because of air dynamics. For example a Phantom 2 with a banner half the size of ours can only stay in the air for 3-5 minutes.
You all sound a bit hypocritical.
Oooooh.... I'm so going to buy one for the whole 15 min flight time to advertise. Not!
Really? Show me a copter that can stay up for 1 hr and then you have something real.
You forgot 2.5 John, make outrageous claims about what you think you have invented that has been around for years.
The current trend seem to be something like this..
1. Take some established concept that works
2. Add drone
3. ?????
4. Profit!!!
I hope you have good insurance. You are going to need it.
Operating one of these things close enough to a high enough volume of foot traffic to make it even remotely practical would be extremely difficult. Even if it could be done, the cost per lead and risk to brand would render it unattractive to all but the most unthinking marketing executive/agent.
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