Thank You Orville and Wilbur Susan Bladholm Campaign

Thank You Orville and Wilbur Susan Bladholm

Campaign Objective: Focus the general public on the value of flight – how flying brings multiple benefits to people’s lives and tying the benefits back to the 14 airlines at PDX “I can fly!”…because of PDX air service

Milestones: 30 million gross impressions • Media buy • Recruitment for the Right Wright Brothers • Three special events • “Airline of the Week” at PDX • Essay contest

Media Partners • The Oregonian • KINK FM • KGW TV 8 • Oregon. Live. com

Events: July 21 Noon Tunes – lunch drawing with Airline reps Pioneer Courthouse Square August 15 Northwest Antique Airplane Fly-in – Orville and Wilbur costume contest Pearson Field Airport, Vancouver August 29 Oregon International Air Show- essay contest winners Hillsboro Airport

Airline Promotion • Two air carriers featured each week for seven weeks • Air carriers chose which flight and destination to feature • Orville and Wilbur attended every airline event • Airlines were featured on KGW TV 8, and on Port website

Essay Contest • 285 essays submitted • Nine Judges • Seven winners in three categories – 9 – 13 years – 14 – 18 years – Over 18

Brandon Chupp - Ages 9 -13 Thank you Orville and Wilbur for making it possible for me to meet Lego Robotics teams from around the world! In April, my family and I flew Delta to Atlanta, Georgia, for the Lego Robotics World Competition. We thought that we might have some problems getting through security with our Lego robot because it has a lot of electronics in the motors and in the controller. But the PDX staff was very helpful. Our robot showed up as something strange on the x-ray scanner, so one of the PDX staff had me come over and open the robot case so he wouldn’t damage it. After he saw that it was just a box of Lego gears, axles, and motors built into a robot, he told me good luck and to have fun at the competition! I was afraid that we’d have a boring flight but we actually had a great time on Delta watching movies on the seatback TVs! And the food smelled homemade! Even through we didn’t win the competition, we felt like winners because of the chance to meet teams from all around the world and make friends with them! My mom thinks it’s funny that now my idea of a good vacation is a plane ride. I am so grateful for the chance to fly Delta and I'm very grateful for the polite and helpful staff at PDX! Thank you again Orville and Wilbur for your great invention! I can’t wait to fly again!

Muriel Mc. Manus – Adult Thank you, Orville and Wilbur, American Airlines and Portland International Airport for helping my husband me become grandparents. American's excellent crew helped make the November 14, 1992 flights from Peru very happy ones for the newly minted family of three. The tiniest passenger was Isabel Elena, born 3 1/2 months earlier in Lima, Peru and adopted there. They came through Gate C-4 at PDX to a joyous welcome for the precious newcomer. When our daughter put the little beauty in my arms we were all in tears. Isabel has been a great joy--from infancy to her toddler's "tea party" (when "tea" was sand that missed the cup and poured into Grandpa's shoe)--to sewing with me, to tug-of-war games with Grandpa and, as a teen, to insisting on being Grandpa's wheelchair pusher. When she was 7, her mom took Isabel to Lima to visit her birth mother, who was ill. I was invited along. We met Isabel's Peruvian grandparents, who came by bus from their Andean village to visit their granddaughter and us. We returned with even more appreciation for American Airlines' terrific service and for our beautiful and efficient Portland International Airport. Following Grandpa's recent passing, we found Isabel's 1992 arrival itinerary neatly tucked away in his suit jacket pocket where he had kept it all these years. My Norwegian immigrant parents also enjoyed air travel, although they were grateful for the steamships that brought them here in 1907 and 1909. In 1917 they named their first-born Orville. Sorry, Wilbur.

David Pearce – Adult Thank you, Orville and Wilbur, for changing my life for ever on the night I flew into PDX for the first time. Six months earlier, I had been living the unremarkable life of a British airman based in the north of Scotland. I’d never given much thought to visiting the US and had no idea where Oregon was, but that all changed when I answered an on-line post looking for a pen friend. My new friend, Kathi, seemed a bit of a tom boy: she worked as an office manager in a forging shop, drank beer and liked to watch football with the guys. We didn’t write each other too often, but then one day, when she was having a hard time with something, Kathi poured her heart out in a e-mail…. . so my little tom boy wasn’t so tough after all; my heart melted and from that moment we were like peas and carrots. The e-mails increased, then we started calling and before long, I found myself on North West flight 44 from London travelling to PDX to see Kathi for the first time. As I flew past Mount Hood, glowing white in the light of a full moon, then turned and followed the inky black Columbia River towards PDX, I wondered how I would remember this evening As I look back, 11 years later, I remember the evening of March 19 th, 1998 as the evening I met my wife to be for the first time; the evening I “came home” for the first time.

Campaign recap • Media buy cost: $84, 000 • In-kind value: $430, 000 • Cost of campaign: $165, 565 • Gross number of impressions: 48, 709, 700

Thank you