Advertising placard

#This invention relates to advertising placards for use in aircraft and, more particularly, to self adhesive advertising placards meeting FAA requirements for use in commercial aircraft passenger cabins.

#In the United States alone, millions of people travel on thousands of commercial aircraft every year. These people travel for various reasons including vacations and business. They travel in different classes such as first class, business, and coach, but they all have several things in common. When they board an aircraft, they walk past blank overhead luggage compartments doors. As they ride in aircraft, they look up at blank overhead luggage compartment doors, and while moving around aircraft cabins during flight, they are guided past blank overhead luggage compartment doors. To utilize these literally thousands of blank surfaces, the present invention proposes placing advertising placards on outer surfaces of overhead luggage compartment doors in aircraft passenger cabins.

#To protect the prominence of aircraft safety markings and emergency lighting, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that items used in commercial aircraft comply with a Conformity Code. To that end, the overhead luggage compartment doors and other internal surfaces of aircraft passenger cabins are typically colored beige, gray, or off-white. These neutral colors serve to highlight safety markings and exit/emergency lighting in aircraft passenger cabins. Thus, any advertising placard must not appreciably distract passenger from the prominence of safety markings and emergency lighting before the FAA will approve it for use in aircraft passenger cabins.

#These and other inventive features, advantages, and objects will appear from the following Detailed Description of The Preferred Embodiments when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings in which similar reference characters denote similar elements throughout the several views and wherein:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a commercial aircraft passenger cabin having advertising placards according to the present invention applied to the overhead luggage compartment doors of the cabin;

#FIG. 2 is a front view of an advertising placard according to the present invention with a face alignment sheet applied thereto for installation;

#Referring to the drawings in greater detail, FIG. 1 shows a plurality of advertising placards 20 mounted on viewing surfaces 22 in a commercial aircraft passenger cabin 24. Every time passengers look up or get out of their seats 26 to move up and down the isle 28, they are guided past the advertising placards 20. Therefore, the passengers are continuously exposed to the advertisement for the duration of the flight.

#Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, each advertising placard 20 includes a substrate 30 and a coloration material 34 arranged in a desired advertising pattern, of at least one Prior to installation, the substrate has a backing sheet 32, and a face alignment sheet 36 is attached to the placard 20 opposite the backing sheet 32. The face alignment sheet 36 is removably adhered to the coloration material with an adhesive layer 35. The placard is substantially flat with a configuration matching the advertisement whether it be a design or words such as the illustrated trademark Advent Airads™.

#The substrate 30 is preferably thin and flat, and it has as many pieces as are necessary to make up the discrete parts of the advertisement. The substrate has an outer side 38 opposite the viewing surface and an inner side 40 facing the viewing surface 22. The backing sheet 32 covers the inner side 40, and the face alignment sheet 36 covers the outer side 38. The substrate is preferably transparent with a thickness in the range of approximately 1 mil to approximately 3 mils with a preferred thickness of approximately 2 mils, and the substrate is also preferably nonglossy and flexible; so that it is not readily perceivable when applied to the viewing surface 22.