"It does not pollute the skies."

April 17, 2008 6:00 AM

Advertising in the clouds using repurposed snow machines.

People have been using the sky for advertising for quite some time. People first advertised via skywriting in 1922, and first projected words onto clouds in 1892 [PDF].

posted by JDHarper (25 comments total)

The machines can pop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires.

...generally last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour...

"It does not pollute the skies,"

/me weeps for humanity
posted by DU at 6:05 AM on April 17, 2008

It's fitting that the first thing the video shows is a Mickey Mouse head floating into the sky.
posted by cashman at 6:22 AM on April 17, 2008

Okay. Take the skies from me.
posted by sandraregina at 6:41 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

They talk about a proprietary soap mixture, but do not call their process or machine 'patented'. I wonder if because of that, we will start seeing these everywhere by all sorts of companies.
posted by Kickstart70 at 6:42 AM on April 17, 2008

Ah for fuck sake. A precious memory from childhood was playing "see what you see in the clouds" with my parents. Now we'll be sitting with our kids as they shout - "look mommy, McDonalds in the Sky. Lets go to McDonalds."

Bastards.
posted by twistedonion at 6:47 AM on April 17, 2008

Can't there be one thing left that doesn't have a damn logo on it?
posted by bink at 7:00 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Will it ever stop?
posted by batou_ at 7:00 AM on April 17, 2008

Am I the only person who actually thinks this is kind of neat?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:28 AM on April 17, 2008

Looks like, yep.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:32 AM on April 17, 2008

These seem too small to do much for advertising. I can maybe see these being used instead of, I don't know, confetti at a parade, but not much more then that...
posted by bookwo3107 at 7:49 AM on April 17, 2008

A snow maker that makes advertisements float in the air for minutes? Well, it's time to get your soy-based carbon-neutral hybrid panties all up in a bunch, Metafilter!
posted by jstef at 8:05 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

The last thing I EVER EVER want to see when I look up at the clouds is a giant McDonald's sign.

This business will never take off. Everyone I know would oppose this idea.
posted by Takeyourtime at 8:22 AM on April 17, 2008

"They will fly for miles," Guerra said. "They are durable so they last a while."

is it ok for me to get my union suit in a bunch over advertising's never ending attempt to make inroads into all aspects of my life? is it all right if i hope to look into the sky and see a cloud in the shape of a pig eating a monkey, and not a caveman from an insurance commercial? is it too much to hope that every inch of the earth will not be commercialized? is that somehow beyond the pale?

I just read the short story Ray, Bohemian, which is in the latest, or a recent New Yorker. It is about identity and viral marketing. I think what I have a problem with, in part, is not advertising, or marketing, per se, it may be that these things are a necessary evil for our economy. but, in part, it is a question a question of whether these things make their intention known to me. if it is not "unethical" (or an appeal to something if not ethics) for a commercial product to be communicated to me in a way that is unknown to me, then I think that the future pushes towards greater stages of unreality. Maybe we are already in a post-reality landscape and this doesn't bother you. I can't say. However, a life where there are no open spaces, no commons, no noncommercial environments is one that will certainly degrade the "human experience" beyond the declined state we already find ourselves.

So yeah, a temporary cloud that floats through the sky and hovers above me which is a pigtailed girl eating a hamburger is gross and my soy-panties are bunched way the hell up.
posted by 8 Bit at 8:27 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

The last thing I EVER EVER want to see when I look up at the clouds is a giant McDonald's sign.

You'd really rather look up and see an anvil falling towards you, or someone emptying a bucket full of (untied) used condoms at you?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:31 AM on April 17, 2008

What the video doesn't show is me standing next to the damn thing with a hose.
posted by regicide is good for you at 10:03 AM on April 17, 2008

i'm not so into the advertising aspect, but it seems that some of you may not understand how fun i am.
posted by snofoam at 10:45 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Neat technology though.

Can someone explain the state of helium supplies to me though? I understood from something I read years ago that we only had a limited supply of the stuff. How is it I still see it being used by tankful for kids balloons and now this stuff?
posted by Zinger at 11:06 AM on April 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

zinger, i think there was a post about it here. most helium is used in laboratories. the US government started a strategic reserve in the 60s to make sure we had it for space and defense research, but it was privatized and now prices have been going up. it's a byproduct of natural gas production, i believe, or at least that's where we get most of it.
posted by snofoam at 11:11 AM on April 17, 2008

oh. it was askme.
posted by snofoam at 11:12 AM on April 17, 2008

I'll tell you what you young'uns missed: skywriting. Now that was fun to watch!
posted by kozad at 11:14 AM on April 17, 2008

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?
FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.
posted by krikkit261 at 12:55 PM on April 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

The machines can poop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires.

Fixed that for them.
posted by rooftop secrets at 2:14 PM on April 17, 2008

They aren't playing fair anymore. How the hell am I supposed to change that?!
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:29 PM on April 17, 2008

Am I the only person who actually thinks this is kind of neat?

OMG! I can't believe I didn't think of this before, this has HUGE potential for fake UFOs! Imagine a helium soap-foam two feet across and 30 feet long, sort of like what Mythbusters did with soap foam and natural gas. Imagine this at dusk, with the setting sun acting to obliquely light the thing, it might glow orange like jet contrails sometimes do. Imagine your helium soap-foam floating over the baseball game, with thousands of witnesses. Imagine this over Lake Washington during Seafair, with 50 UFO videos uploaded to YouTube the next day! Imagine this at night, lit from below with red and green lasers!

Peter Davenport is going to get a bunch of phone calls because of this....
posted by Tube at 5:14 PM on April 17, 2008

Like it couldn't just be used for the common good---like creating boob clouds or something.
posted by dasheekeejones at 3:44 AM on April 18, 2008