Tweets written in the sky by Paddy Power stunt planes to support Team Europe at the Ryder Cup

By on Sunday, September 30, 2012

Habitual PR stunsters Paddy Power took to the skies above Medinah Country Club today to begin their delivery of the world’s first ‘sky-tweeting’ campaign. The stunt is in support of Team Europe at the Ryder Cup tournament, as part of their ‘We Hear You’ series.

The campaign is ongoing over the weekend and the planes are flying completely outside of restrictions, so though it may be cheeky, it’s not breaking any rules or laws.

The Irish bookies, aided by one of my clients – the brilliant CURB Media, also behind the gender-specific bus stop ads you may remember from earlier this year, and the bacteria billboard for Warner Bros’ Contagion movie, also in the US – asked members of the public to tweet messages of support with the hashtag #goeurope. These tweets were then written in cloud vapour by stunt pilots flying at 10,000ft.

Each message is visible for 20 miles, with each individual character 1,200 ft tall – 200 ft taller than the Shard skyscraper in London. Each message takes around 90 seconds to form and spans over 5 miles wide.

More than 60 tweets will be sky-written this weekend, as Paddy Power aim to counteract Team USA’s home advantage. The computer-controlled messages are delivered by five stunt planes, spelling each character with a trail that is turned on and off as letters are built, as you can see in the video below.

As explained in the press release, Paddy Power is expected to secure a double entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the ‘World’s Biggest Tweet’ and for topping previously held records in ‘Biggest Skywriting ‘category.

Here’s a campaign video:

And here’s a video of the moment Rory McIlroy said ‘that’s so cool’ as he spotted a message that said: ‘Rory’s gonna getcha’, asking his team to take a picture of the encouraging words.

Involved agencies:

Taylor Herring PR

CURB Media

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