California put its car dealers in rows. That is great for shoppers and brutal for any single dealer trying to be the one they stop at.
The auto row problem
On a California auto row your competitors are your neighbours. Everyone has the same frontage, the same rows of cars, the same manufacturer pylon.
At ground level nobody stands out, because standing out requires being different at the level a driver is looking. A balloon at 120 feet is above the pylons, above the flags, above the light poles, and there is usually only one of them on the row.
Being the only thing at that altitude is the entire advantage. It stops being an advantage the day your neighbour buys one too, which is a real argument for going first.
Freeway frontage
The other California pattern is a business backing onto a freeway, invisible from it, with all its signage facing a surface street carrying a fraction of the traffic.
A blimp at 120 feet is readable from the freeway. That is often ten or twenty times the passing volume of the road your door faces, and it costs $1,526 once rather than a monthly billboard rate.
Check your local sign ordinance before committing to a permanent install. Freeway-adjacent rules vary a lot by city in California.
The conditions
Inland California sun is hard on materials. Cheap balloons are PVC, which goes brittle under ultraviolet light and keeps every fold crease. Ours are polyurethane, which is why a California company can fly more than 100 of our blimps every weekend for homebuilders and keep doing it.
Coastal and pass wind is the other factor. The rule is the same everywhere: over 25 miles per hour in the forecast, bring it in. In windy corridors plan on it being a morning and evening product.
Ask for a quote. Call 1-800-791-1445 or email [email protected] and tell us the size and whether you want it printed.
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