Lindbergh Foundation Ads Highlight Aviation’s Environmentally Friendly Technologies, Techniques

June 6, 2013

Lindbergh Foundation Ads Highlight Aviation’s Environmentally Friendly Technologies, Techniques In an effort to underscore the number and variety of aviation innovations that have continually reduced the industry’s carbon footprint, the Lindbergh Foundation, working with a Wichita, KS-based marketing company, has created an ad campaign that has already reached millions of readers.

The campaign, two years in the making, was the brainchild of Lindbergh Foundation Chairman John Petersen and Sonia Greteman, president and creative director of the Greteman Group. Consisting of four print ads, the campaign focuses on the environmental contributions of both aviation innovators and companies.

“The general aviation pilot or enthusiast usually has no kind of idea about the contributions that are being made and have been made within this industry over time aimed at benefitting the environment,” Petersen said, echoing what he has heard from members of the Aviation Green Alliance. Those members include Bombardier, BRS Aerospace, Cessna, FedEx, Beechcraft, Jeppesen and Fantasy of Flight, as well as notable individuals such as David Treinis, Kermit Weeks, John and Martha King, and Greg Herrick.

Petersen said some pilots’ lack of awareness of what the industry has done to mitigate its carbon footprint meant there was little pushback when environmental advocates, with little knowledge of business aviation, painted a negative and inaccurate picture of the industry’s environmental impact, often neglecting to mention its positive efforts.

“That was the genesis of this campaign,” Petersen said.

The Foundation’s Aviation Green Alliance kicked off the campaign at last year’s NBAA Convention (NBAA2012) in Orlando, and the boldly colored advertisements were placed in 11 aviation publications for an initial run of five months.

“Everyone is working pro bono on this,” Greteman said. The advertisements created by this volunteer effort have resulted in 4 million impressions. Many of the publications that initially agreed to a five-month campaign have signed on to extend their publication of the ads.

“We wanted to arm the aviation industry with really good facts about aviation and its environmental footprint so people could talk intelligently about these remarkable efforts,” she added. “This is aimed at government and corporate awareness. We’re explaining to the business community the value of innovation in aviation and the awareness of the carbon footprint and efforts to innovate on behalf of the environment.”

The ads focus on both personal and business efforts toward greener aviation, Greteman explained. They are:

• “Lord of the Wings: Joe Clark” – The first ad in the series features Joe Clark, CEO of Aviation Partners Boeing, and his company’s revolutionary efforts to reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency with its blended winglet innovation. Aviation Partners’ technology is credited with saving more than three billion gallons of fuel and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 32 million tons around the world.
• “Composite Virtuoso: Burt Rutan” – Aviation legend Burt Rutan, founder and chairman of Scaled Composites, is widely credited with radical composite designs that have revolutionized aviation and further reduced general aviation’s carbon footprint.
• “Focus on Efficiency: FedEx” – Not all innovators are famous inventors. The third ad in the Aviation Green Alliance series features FedEx. The company, which operates one of the biggest airlines in the world, has committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent and achieved that goal within just five years. Now, the company is embarked on an aggressive campaign to modernize its fleet and cut emissions by a total of 30 percent.
• “Breakthrough R&D: GE Aviation” – The latest Aviation Green Alliance ad focuses on GE Aviation, maker of the nation’s first jet engine and now a leading manufacturer of turbine powerplants. Its engines help planes fly more efficiently while generating 60 percent more thrust than the rockets that first flung Americans into space.

“The aviation industry as a whole has done a lot over the past 35 years to improve efficiency and reduce emissions,” Greteman said. “We need to take a moment to celebrate.”