It’s probably no secret to airline pilots, and perhaps to rubbernecking passengers, that Target stores near busy airports like Chicago’s O’Hare or New York City’s LaGuardia have a large bull’s-eye on their roofs. Supposedly intended to solidify branding while alerting travelers to a nearby location, Target’s building-as-an-aerial-billboard idea may be, um, on target once map services on Google, Yahoo, and MSN really take off.

Advertisers, fasten your overalls, it’s time to do a little painting. The real estate business was one of the first industries to really take advantage of Google Maps and other map services, integrating them with their websites and advertising. We may well see a mutation of this use as the advertising world gets keen on the possibilities.

How easy would it be to paint the roof of your business with a company logo, web address, and phone number? As aerial images are updated at the Googleplex and as people bring up an address in your vicinity, there’s your logo smiling at them from below.

Or if Google really wants to exploit their own service, they could offer advertising by photoshopping logos onto already existing images. In the long run, though, it may be cheaper to just to paint your roof and get it cached before Google gets wise.

For the truly creative brand managers, we may see built-in aerial branding as new buildings are erected and landscapes manicured to mimic a logo shape. It makes you wonder if RJ Reynolds would get in trouble with the feds for a headquarters that resembled Joe Camel from above.

And aliens could use it too to figure out where they can stop for gas and a Klondike bar.

For a good tutorial on integrating Google Maps into your web application, check out this site.

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