Get Ready for Drone-vertising

What's This?

A drone flies at the Abbaye Des-Vaux-de-Cernay, southwest of Paris, Thursday March 20, 2014.

Image: Bertrand Combaldieu/Associated Press

By Todd Wasserman2014-04-30 03:02:23 UTC

Unmanned aircraft has been used to carry out military strikes, to film weddings and possibly will be used someday to deliver Amazon products.

Now some entrepreneurs see another use: advertising.

Gauravjit Singh on Monday launched DroneCast, a startup that uses banners — literal ones — to spread advertising messages. The agency already has five clients in Philadelphia. Each will pay $100 a day to use of of DroneCast's four $4,000 drones to advertise over busy intersections, according to a report. The banners, which can run as long as 6 feet, will fly about 25 feet in the air.

That is, unless the Federal Aviation Association shuts the company down. It's unclear whether what DroneCast is doing is illegal. The FAA now prohibits commercial use of drones in many cases. Last November though the agency let farmers start using drones to monitor their crops and cattle.

See also: Why Mobile Ads Are Seen as a Boon to Facebook, But a Plague to Google

DroneCast isn't the only firm to ponder drone-vertising. Another Philadelphia company, Manayunk Cleaners, has used drones to deliver dry cleaning. A San Francisco realtor has also employed drones to showcase local homes for sale. In the UK, Domino's has tapped drones to deliver pizzas.

Topics: Advertising, Business, Startups