Yep, I think those are called branding exercises. Only big companies engage in those types of advertising since they are not easily gauged for effectiveness. It

Yep, I think those are called branding exercises. Only big companies engage in those types of advertising since they are not easily gauged for effectiveness. It's very hard to convince some smaller company that they should spend $5M on some blimp and slap their logo on the side or something crazy like that. Big companies (car companies spring to mind) have that kind of money and advertising budgets and they do run these kinds of branding campaigns all the time. But the issues with these campaigns is that they're the first to go when recession hits. In times of recession, first thing you cut is branding advertising since you can't measure it and you can't track it. Online banners, and especially google adwords, will fare better in slowdowns since a company must advertise if it is to survive and get some revenue in. They will probably pick something that's effective and something that they can track right away.