Product launches are rarely easy or straightforward. On top of drafting press releases and courting members of the media, marketers need to find effective ways of raising awareness and desire among consumers. Trade shows, sampling experiences, and pop-up retail outlets are all common tactics for debuting mass-market goods that appeal to a wide demographic. But what if your shiny new product measures more than 100 feet long, is made to order, and is designed for discerning customers whose closets are filled with Louboutins and Louis Vuitton instead of Sketchers and St. John's Bay?

While this isn't unfamiliar territory for the marketing team at Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., the Savannah, GA-based maker of private planes (or "business jets" to use the preferred industry nomenclature), the stakes were particularly high leading up to the 2019 National Business Aviation Association's Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (NBAA-BACE). Gulfstream's chief competitor in this elite echelon of the skies is Bombardier Aviation, and the two companies play a never-ending game of one-upmanship to see whose plane is the largest or the fastest. In 2018, Bombardier debuted the Global 7500, an aircraft that dethroned Gulfstream's G650 as the largest business jet in the world. But Gulfstream likes being at the top, and its engineers were already deep into designing a jet that would reclaim the coveted title.

Fresh off the drawing board and slated for a 2019 launch, the newly minted G700 boasts a cabin that is 2.5 feet longer, 1 inch taller, and 2 inches wider than the Global 7500's. These few slivers of additional living space may not make much of an appreciable difference to well-heeled passengers, but they would give Gulfstream undeniable bragging rights as the maker of the world's biggest private plane by cabin size. (The G700's 110-foot length and 103-foot wingspan is slightly smaller than the Global 7500's.) Those extra inches don't come cheap, as evidenced by the G700's starting price of $78 million. Such a figure is eye-popping to 99- percenters, but a 2019 report from Statista Inc. places the number of private jets owned by ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the United States at upwards of 13,000 and the number of U.S. business aircraft at more than 21,000. Factor in international buyers and airlines offering charter services, and it's clear Gulfstream is targeting a highly exclusive yet viable market.

Air Pressure
Gulfstream's initial plan was not to unveil the G700 at NBAA-BACE in October, but approximately two months earlier during an event at its Georgia headquarters. "Most aircraft reveals take place in a controlled indoor environment to minimize prying eyes and ensure information doesn't leak prior to the event," says Jeannine Haas, chief marketing officer at Gulfstream. Experiential-marketing firm George P. Johnson (GPJ), a Project Worldwide agency, had been brought onboard to assist with the creative direction and production, and plans were well underway. However, roughly four weeks before the event, Haas and her team got to thinking that such a big announcement warranted a loftier platform. Gulfstream marketers then decided to move the launch of the G700 to NBAA-BACE, the largest business-aviation event in the United States, where Gulfstream would have both an exhibit at the Las Vegas Convention Center as well as a roughly 460-by-260-foot outdoor display of five planes adjacent to a big-tent "chalet" at Henderson Executive Airport. NBAA-BACE is always a reliable draw for the press, industry insiders, and a posh crowd of international buyers, and word of a new record-breaking plane would undoubtedly have Gulfstream flying high above its competitors. But impressing this audience of literal jet-setters would require a bit more than flutes of lukewarm champagne, some crab puffs, and a photo booth. "Given the Gulfstream 700 is such an extraordinary aircraft, we knew we needed to elevate the experience even more by creating mystery, suspense, excitement, and some sleight of hand," Haas says. "We wanted attendees to leave the unveiling thinking that the best brand in business aviation just hosted the best reveal for the best aircraft."

With just weeks until NBAA-BACE, Gulfstream handed GPJ a new brief asking for a show-stopping launch event at the company's static display at Henderson Airport. "Even inside a hangar, concealing and then revealing an object the size of an airplane is a Herculean feat," says James Klein, senior vice president of live production at GPJ. "Now our challenge was to create a dramatic unveiling in an outdoor setting with no existing infrastructure." Even though the G700 on site would be a wingless, for-display-purposes-only mock-up, draping the plane wouldn't conceal its shape, and the fuselage was too large to fit onto a stage and hide behind a curtain. Plus GPJ needed to satisfy Gulfstream's request for a large video screen on which to show two actual G700s taxiing under their own power at the company's Savannah headquarters. "We just couldn't land on a design that checked all the boxes," Klein says.

Ultimately, however, boxes ended up being the solution. Klein and his team drew up a plan in which the G700 mock-up would be hidden inside a 60-foot-tall and 160-foot-long series of box-truss cubes, the fronts of which would be covered in blow-through LED tiles to withstand Las Vegas' desert winds. Mounted on a motorized track, the cubes would nest inside each other to slowly reveal the aircraft. It was a bold plan of a scale never before attempted, which made it a perfect match for the G700.

"The idea was to create an insurmountable perception of space between Gulfstream and its competitors," Klein says. "We presented the concept to Gulfstream, and they were blown away. But they had one key question: 'Will this actually work?'" The GPJ team assured Gulfstream's marketers that they could pull it off, and thus began a mad 21-day design-and-fabrication dash to erect a mobile airplane hangar from the ground up.

Love at First Flight

On the evening of Oct. 21, one day before NBAA-BACE opened, a well-dressed crowd of approximately 700 of Gulfstream's invited clients, prospects, industry partners, and members of the media descended on Henderson Airport knowing only that they were attending "the biggest announcement in business aviation." After checking in, jet-setters entered the chalet (designed and fabricated by Czarnowski Display Service Inc.), where they enjoyed a pre-event reception and chatted with Gulfstream reps. At the appropriate time, guests took their seats in the outdoor arena, where flashing numbers on a 5,000-square-foot, 12-mm-pixel-pitch LED wall comprising the face of the massive cubes steadily counted down toward zero.

Following a pulse-raising video (produced by GPJ sister company Spinifex Group) enhanced by concert-quality surround-sound speakers and more than 1,000 lights, Gulfstream president Mark Burns took the stage to welcome the crowd and elaborate on the events leading up to the new aircraft while the LED tiles behind him projected images of serene skies as seen from 30,000 feet. The video wall then kicked into overdrive and displayed a montage of beauty shots of the G700's interior and exterior. Then, the cube at the far right of the stage started to retract and nest inside its slightly larger neighbor, revealing the tail of the plane. The remaining cubes followed in kind, and within two minutes the entire fuselage was on full display, resulting in a chorus of cheers and applause.

After another brief speech from Burns and a clip of the taxiing G700s in Savannah (proof that the new plane was in an advanced stage of de-velopment) shown on the 35-foot-wide video wall on the face of the "mother cube" now containing its four boxy brethren, guests were free to board the mock-up and explore the extra-roomy cabin for themselves. Potential buyers snapped photos and selfies while learning how the G700 can be ordered in multiple cabin configurations to suit practically any need or want. Meanwhile, Gulfstream reps met with journalists and writers eager to get info on the company's new flagship. Back in the chalet, the party continued, and interactive stations allowed guests to design their own luxurious airplane interiors.

Above and Beyond
Despite a last-minute takeoff from an abbreviated runway, Gulfstream's G700 launch event hit impressive heights. The company netted $28.9 million in publicity value via 432 mainstream media mentions, resulting in more than 1.3 billion impressions. In addition, traffic to Gulfstream's website jumped 147 percent during the week of the event, a spike no doubt fueled by worldwide interest in the G700.

Corporate Event Awards judges were equally intrigued. "To pull off something of this size in this amount of time is nothing short of impressive," said one judge. "Plane reveals are tricky, and this retractable LED structure was so dramatic." So kudos to Gulfstream and GPJ for thinking on the fly and earning their wings in the face of heavy turbulence. E