Airports are a prime destination for business travelers - and of course, business traveler marketers. Increasingly, advertisers and airport authorities are coming up with ever more creative venues to target this group. The latest example is provided by Hilton Garden Inn, which has begun using airline gate information displays, according to the New York Times' Media Decoder blog.

Their ads are running on 407 gate information display screens in United Airlines terminals in some 15 large markets, among them Chicago and Washington. They appear for 10 seconds every five minutes, Media Decoder writes, so as not to annoy - or hinder - passengers actually looking for flight information. These ads dovetail with ads running on United in-flight TV systems. Brand Connections, DGWB Advertising and Communications and OMD are handling the campaign.

Targeting Boarding Passes

Earlier this year Ryanair partnered with London-based Ink to sell ad space on boarding passes, targeting travelers based on route and demographics. Ryanair focused specifically on retailers at the airport of departure - as opposed to the destination, when travelers are more opt to grab their luggage and rush off.

However, as travel becomes ever more digitized, new and perhaps unexpected ad mediums - such as the gate display - will become more commonplace, or at least acceptable to travelers.

For instance, there is the possibility of coordinating mobile ads with the anticipated 480 million mobile boarding passes expected by 2013 — a 71% increase from current levels.