Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was a reality television series providing home improvements for less fortunate families and community schools. Hosted by TV personality, Ty Pennington, the show ran for nine seasons and 200 episodes on ABC.
Goal
In September 2010, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition wanted to surprise the deaf students at the Oregon School for the Deaf when revealing they were going to provide the school with a complete makeover. Typically, the show’s practice is to show up and announce their arrival on a megaphone, however for this project that wasn’t an ideal method to communicate with the recipients of the makeover. So producers of the show contacted AirSign to design a giant airplane banner to share the exciting news with the students, faculty and staff of the school.
“So look, normally I grab the megaphone, crank it up to 11 and I can surprise a family. But it’s not really going to work with this particular big family because they’re deaf, so we had to be creative. It’s all about visuals when you’re dealing with the deaf.”
– Ty Pennington, host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Execution
AirSign created the huge banner, that measured 40 feet x 100 feet, and supplied the plane that flew above as Pennington and his team arrived at the school.
The Results
Not only did the plane flying directly overhead the students and faculty of the Oregon School for the Deaf attract attention and cause everyone to look up, but the banner was big enough for everyone to read and understand. The excitement caused by the flyover was felt throughout the entire week and is apparent in the episode.