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Opinion

Human Shaped Planes Over New York... Marketing or Art?

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird. No, it's a plane. Wait, it's a, er, marketing campaign?

AX Mina

AX Mina

— 1 min read
Visitors in DUMBO watch as RC planes shaped to look like people fly over the East River.
Visitors in DUMBO watch as RC planes shaped to look like people fly over the East River.

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird. No, it’s a plane. Wait, it’s a, er, marketing campaign?

Last, week, three people shot “human shaped RC planes” off Brooklyn Bridge Park, where they flew over the East River and past the Bridge and iconic Manhattan skyline. It was like a Superman movie come to life, as the silhouettes dashed around the sky.

This cool video has gone viral, with over seven million views so far. But when I clicked around to find the source, I was surprised to see it was a viral video campaign. This from TechCrunch:

In a recent publicity venture for their new movie “Chronicle,” 20th Century Fox enlisted the help of viral marketing agency Thinkmodo to design and execute a rather unique campaign element that surely caused several doubletakes over the New York City skyline.

The human-shaped airplanes are an interesting marriage of arts, technology and marketing.  I’m not yet sure how I feel about the marketing side of it, but as a project in and of itself, it’s pretty cool.