Are Brands out of Hand?

"Then you could do all kinds of stuff with it on your computer," Alpert says. The entire flight could become a kind of full-body advertising submersion.

And that's just the beginning. Alpert hopes to blanket the entire airborne eating experience with advertising by growing his business to put ads on beverage napkins and "that paperlike liner on top of the plastic tray." What about vomit bags? "You know," Alpert says, "we talked about it. We thought about it. But I just wouldn't go there."

But this is America, after all, so someone will go there. In fact, Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, has already landed. At a recent job fair to recruit fresh employees, his team passed out vomit bags printed with the slogan "Sick of your job?"

Jack Hitt is a contributing writer for Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, and the public radio program "This American Life." Visit Harvey Alpert & Co. on the Web (www.harveyalpertco.com).