Product and service advertising assails potential customers from just about everywhere, from urinal stalls to the shirts people wear. Any space where a person might glance in passing makes its pitch, and the walls enclosing the new Bismarck airport terminal's wide-open spaces won't be any different.

With an estimated 150,000 travelers passing through the Bismarck terminal each year, the airport's management wants to take advantage of its high visibility to fund the terminal and future airport work - better to sell advertising than to place the burden on taxpayers.

Just as the new terminal will be a well-crafted blend of modern technology and artistic endeavor, the advertising strategically placed throughout the building will be a mixture of slick Wall-Street attention-getters and tasteful scenes of the prairies. Putting together the advertising scheme is a company called Interspace, which specializes in airports. The company has been a presence in the Bismarck airport terminal since 1997 and was awarded the contract for the next 10 years in the new terminal.

Dan Soria, a representative of Interspace, is in Bismarck this week with his associates, making their pitch to local businesses to take advantage of what the terminal has to offer. He said Interspace is one of only three companies specializing in advertising in airport terminals.

"The airport put out an RFP (request for proposals) asking advertising companies to set up a program," Soria said. "The airport receives revenues from the advertising which it can put toward its programs."

Interspace has programs in 180 airports across North America including Fargo, Rapid City, S.D., and Minneapolis. The 30-year-old company recently expanded its reach, adding airports in Australia and New Zealand.

While about 150,000 travelers are expected to go through the Bismarck terminal in a year's time, Interspace adds a multiplier of 1.5, accounting for all of the other traffic, including meeters and greeters, terminal workers and other visitors. Therefore, more than 300,000 people are expected to be targets of the advertising.

Because Bismarck is a destination rather than a hub airport, the ads usually feature local businesses, large and small, according to Soria, rather than national advertising.

The advertising at the Bismarck terminal will take several forms. State-of-the-art scrolling sign technology will replace the billboard-type ads that are plastered on the walls. At reservation centers featuring hotel-motel accommodations and restaurants, attached phones will provide travelers with easy access. There will be specialty floor displays large enough to put a small truck on and smaller, secure displays in which smaller products can be displayed. Spectacular wall wraps will depict images of the area. Murals in the baggage claim area will be 10 feet by 20 feet and include a 7-foot-by-3-foot sponsor sign. In the passenger waiting area, 12-foot-by-7-foot murals will represent companies.

The scrolling signs will have eight to 10 ads that change every 10 to 12 seconds. The motion attracts attention and while a person is picking up baggage, Soria estimates, all the ads will scroll through two to three times.

According to Soria, Interspace will invest $60,000 to $80,000 in equipment and leasing of space in the new terminal. He estimates Interspace had put between $40,000 to $60,000 in the old terminal.

While the length of advertising contracts varies, the average is 6.7 years for a scrolling ad and 8.7 years for the wall murals. The murals are created on a wallpaper- type material that can be adhered to the walls. Interspace supplies advertisers with the dimensions to fill and works with three graphics companies to come up with the ads.

Soria believes the new Bismarck facility can compete with any of the many terminals he visits and said it is among the top percentile he's worked with.

This is the first time he has developed a campaign during construction, and he said it has been a pleasant experience. Interspace has been able to take pictures of the blank walls in the terminal and use computers to show potential clients how their ads might look.

"Our present customers are given preference on contracts for the new terminal, but we're open to anyone that wants space if it's available," Soria said. "The new ads will be put up the first week of May, at about the same time it will open."

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@bismarcktribune.com.)