"Now is the time to make a statement on where the company is
going," says Phil Michel, vp marketing for Cessna, of his head-turning new
display here at the show (Booth 253). That statement is a new backdrop to
Cessna's cabin mock-ups, a display that integrates a theater-size screen with a
stadium-size ring of pulsating lights and music. Michel says when the company
last year decided to renew its stage show, it thought long and hard about how
to market itself as a forward thinker. "The most exciting things in the
industry were electronic," he says. "What was more logical than making a
statement that visually used that technology?" Cessna came up with the grand
design over the past year with the help of interviews with about 50 Cessna
employees and the assistance of Detroit auto industry display specialists, the
George P. Johnson Co.
