According to the New York Daily News, Boeing is set to begin work on its new 777 jet within the next few months, a project for which the aircraft company says it has already collected 259 orders. At list prices, those 259 orders – from airlines and other aerospace companies – are worth roughly $95 billion, making the Boeing 777 one of the largest and most valuable private business projects of the millennium so far.

The Boeing 777 project isn’t just significant for its net worth either. Sprawling in size and scope, the project will doubtlessly take a sizable, skilled, and committed team. In essence, that means whichever state ends up with the Boeing 777 project in its lap will get a huge boost in overall job market growth. It also means that pretty much every state in the country has some level of interest in hosting the project.

Among the interested parties is Washington state, which was Boeing’s first choice for project home base. The aircraft company, though it is headquartered in Chicago, claims to have a sizable network of experienced workers based in Washington. After Boeing announced the 777 project earlier this month, the company even approached the Washington government to see if the state was interested in hosting work for the project.

Of course, Boeing wanted big tax breaks, contract extensions, and labor concessions before it would begin work in Washington, but it appeared that the state was willing to give them everything they wanted in order to snag the major job growth opportunity that the project represents. Last week however, members of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers shot down a tax break proposal worth $8.7 billion.

That decision sent Boeing off on one of their own jets, looking for another state that would be willing to be a bit more lenient. In the meantime, an organization called the Washington Aerospace Partnership published an ad in the Seattle Times that urged the state government – and the local voting body of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers – to reconsider their decision and negotiate with Boeing in an effort to land the 777 project.

The ad, which featured a photograph of a plane with the words “The Future of Washington” emblazoned above it, argued that the Boeing 777 project would end up being “the biggest job-creating prize in the country since the 1990s.” Indeed, the ad was been quite powerful and persuasive at first look. However, there was one problem: the plane pictured in the advertisement wasn’t a Boeing model, but a plane built by Airbus, the company’s fiercest competitors.

Unfortunately for Washington supporters of the Boeing 777 project, the advertising blunder has overshadowed the initial message of the ad, and the government does not seem to be making any steps toward negotiating with Boeing any further. The Washington Aerospace Partnership at the very least got Boeing’s attention, however: news of their blunder has gone viral and appeared in myriad new stories around the country.