Each time I fly out of Piedmont Triad Airport and return home, a small voice in my head says, Hey, Mark. Hey, Jason. It’s an auto-response to the family behind Phillips Collection—a company I’ve known and collaborated with for the past dozen years, the one that often greets me at the gate.
If you’ve ever passed through PTI, and I’m guessing most of you reading this have, you may have wondered the same thing: What’s the ROI on airport advertising and how did it even happen? That unflinching curiosity is what led me to write my first column of 2026.
First, a bit of level-setting for those newer to the home furnishings and design industry. Phillips Collection is a family-founded company known for its organic contemporary furnishings, a strong sustainability ethos, and meaningful engagement with both industry and community. Their portfolio spans large-scale sculpture, furniture, accessories and wall decor—often crafted from found natural materials or engineered to echo nature’s irregular, unexpected forms. Mark Phillips describes the brand as being in partnership with nature.
So how did Phillips Collection come to take over a Delta terminal gate nearly two decades ago?
Mark had already gotten a taste of airport visibility years earlier, when Phillips Collection installed artwork in the baggage claim area—at no cost to the airport. So when an entire gate became available in the Delta terminal, he seized the opportunity, striking a lease deal through Clear Channel with one caveat: if the airport ever needed the gate back for a new airline tenant, Phillips would move.
Twenty years later, they’re still there—now with a significant presence across both terminals.
“The response was immediate and enormous,” Mark recounts. “We received personal calls—even our competitors reached out. We’ve never had an ROI or embedding of our message like we’ve had from the airport.”
Over the years, he attributes success to several factors. First, the display stands apart from every other two-dimensional ad. Second, it meets people at a moment when they are arriving in a place to buy. And third, “It was a dramatic and unexpected representation of what High Point is known for—furniture, ideas, drama, and color,” he says.
On a foundational level, Mark adds, “It was meant to elevate one’s consideration of design,” he told me. “And where better to get it than High Point—starting with your first step off the plane?”
That ambition has reached a meaningful audience. In the past year alone, more than 2 million passengers passed through PTI, which was ranked No. 5 among small airports in 2025. While not all were coming for Market, many did and the airport became a shared space where High Point’s design identity was introduced.
Maintaining a display inside an active airport, however, is no small feat. At Phillips Collection, that responsibility falls to lead designer Mandy Shanahan, who—along with a colleague—completed specialized training and an extensive background check to gain access.
“We have badges to get through security,” Mandy explains. “Sharp tools have to come in through the back with a police escort. All products are inspected, and everyone installing must clear security. We have a rhythm now, but because it’s such a process, we don’t do change-outs very often.”
Mandy also works closely with a point person at the airport who services the display weekly—dusting, maintaining, and occasionally resetting pieces that have shifted.
“Clearly the seatbelt chairs have been moved for selfies,” Mark says with a laugh.
The seatbelt chair is a favorite. Sculptural yet functional, artistic yet accessible, customizable in any color, featured prominently in The Hunger Games, and available for retail purchase in High Point, it’s no accident that the city’s destination marketing organization known as Visit High Point adopted the iconic chair into its own visual language. Beyond the airport gallery, a Phillips Collection conversation piece has become a symbol of the Home Furnishings Capital of the World.
I had to ask Mark if he watches people as they pass the installation.
“Every time I come and go, I observe,” he told me. “I want the unwashed response. More often than not it’s ignored. But those who give us half a glance convert to a glance and a half.”
The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority is currently in the design phase of a significant terminal modernization project, though details remain under wraps. Whatever comes next, Phillips Collection’s long presence at the airport has already demonstrated what happens when design, timing, and place align—and when a company trusts its instincts enough to act early.
Field Notes is a bi-monthly column written by Jane Dagmi, Managing Director of HPxD. It reflects small gestures, big vision and the human tales that give the industry its inimitable attraction.
