PIMA AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM’S GREAT PAPER AIRPLANE

The Pima Air and Space Museum’s Great Paper Airplane project is a story about how a little known museum in the Arizona desert created new relevance for their physical artifacts of aviation history by making a little history of their own.

Instead of traditional advertising, the client and the agency hatched a scheme to teach applied lessons in math and science inherent to aviation through a paper airplane competition that led to the design, construction and flight of the largest known paper airplane in history.

This audacious attempt at airborne creativity put Pima on a national stage by generating 130 million domestic unpaid media impressions. Interest in the Great Paper Airplane project also contributed to the highest attendance in the museum’s history. And ultimately, this dream made real created a new, dramatically younger audience that gave birth to a new generation of aviation fans looking toward the skies for education and inspiration.