In September 1971, the Gesellschaft für Flughafenwerbung (Society for Airport Advertising) was launched as a partner company of the airport and Deutsche Städtereklame (German Municipal Advertising). In this early days, it marketed backlit panels, showcases, posters and flags on the grounds of Frankfurt Airport, where 10.6 million passengers boarded, transferred of landed in that year. Even then, one of the biggest advertising customers was Lufthansa. In 1988, Messe Frankfurt (Frankfurt Trade Center) was addes as a partner and the company was renamed Media Frankfurt.
With the rapid increase in passenger numbers, the marketing subsidiary grew parallelly. In 1986, the company had 12 employees and implemented eye-catching advertising campaigns for clients such as Still Forklifts, Stockinger Safes, Gebrüder Heinemann or the Airport Boutique. Two years later, Messe Frankfurt joined as a shareholder. In 1994, Fraport bought back messe Frankfurt´s shares and held a 90 percent stake in the marketing subsidiary until 2001.
In 2001, the shareholder base was expanded with the entry of JCDecaux international. Today, Fraport holds 51 percent, JCDecaux 39 percent and Deutsche Städte Medien, part of the Ströer Group, 10 percent of Media Frankfurt. True to the claim "Excellence in Airport Advertising" over 40 employees initiate spectacular target-group specific advertising installations for clients all over the wordl.
Since that time the target group at Germany´s largest airport and Europe´s third-largest airport has changed, becoming more diverse and more widely travelled. Whereas in the 1970s Frankfurt Airport was primarily the departing point for many holiday trips, today it is increasingly the hub for business travellers and international passengers, including from Asia, the USA and Russia. In 2019, the year with the highest passenger numbers to date, a total of some 70.6 million passengers travelled through Frankfurt Airport.
The airport has steadily expanded in line with the growing air traffic. for example, Terminal 1 was extenden by the addition of Terminal 2 in 1994, and Departure Hall C was added in 2008, as well as Pier APlus at Terminal 1 in 2012 - expansions that opened up space for exciting new marketing formats, with an increasing focus on innovative and emotional digital spaces.In 2014, today´s ´flagship´, the Digital Landmark was inaugurated outside the airport, representing the largest digital space in Media Frankfurt´s advertising portfolio with 100 square metres. Only a short time later, two further spectacular large digital panels, the Digital Business Board and the Digital Deluxe Board, were added at two junctions in the departure area.
Today, an advertising story can be told at Frankfurt Airport on baggage carousels, glass bridges, DOOH surfaces, promotion points, on the the tower, the gangways and many other places, at the security checkpoints, in the airport halls, on the roads feeding into the multi-storey car pars as well as the entrances fo the airline lounges and on every path of the customer journey. This journey now extands far beyond our base, Frankfurt Airport. Marketing cooperation with the Hamburg, Stuttgart, Vieanna and Zurich airports form an extensive network that is becoming increasingly efficient and growing constantly because mobility and departure are our business.
