Virgin Australia launches new ‘Bring on Wonderful’ brand platform via Special
Following a two-year major business transformation which returns Virgin Australia to profitability, the airline has today launched a new brand mission ‘Bring on Wonderful’ via Special, marking a new chapter in its 22-year history.
Over the last 12 months, Virgin Australia partnered with Special to start to transform what the experience of flying could and should feel like. To put a stake in the ground and set out with a clear intent: create a flying experience that doesn’t just lift you, but uplifts you. To be an airline that not only continues to genuinely care – championing its people and that culture of service that has long drawn people to Virgin Australia – but to also be a brand that truly curates and innovates within the experience. ‘Bring on Wonderful’ marks Virgin Australia’s mission to truly make flight an uplifting experience for all.
Says Libby Minogue, chief marketing officer, Virgin Australia: “’Bring on Wonderful’ starts with our people – because it’s our people and their incredible dedication to our guests that makes Virgin Australia so special. We are delighted to create new and innovative experiences for our guests which challenge the status quo and that is what ‘Bring on Wonderful’ is all about. This isn’t just a brand campaign – we are putting words in action to make the flying experience unique and truly wonderful.”
For the latest hero experience innovation, Virgin Australia and Special partnered to develop, operationalise and launch the ‘Middle Seat Lottery’, which transforms every middle seat on the airline’s domestic flights from the least favourite to the most wonderful. Guests who sit in the middle seat will have a chance to win hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of unexpected and wonderful prizes, with a new prize and winner every week.
Says Tom Martin, co-CCO, Special: “To do more than the brand communications but to get stuck into Virgin Australia’s actual flight experience is a humbling but also incredibly rewarding opportunity. It enormously helps make what we’re saying and doing seamless.”
Other experience enhancements that have been launched as part of Virgin Australia’s transformation and mission include –
– Refreshed brand identity including new logo and design system, rolling out across in-experience touchpoints on board and in airports
– Refreshed menus, including innovations such as ‘Reverse Kids Meals’ where children can have their meal backwards, with their dessert first, if they so wish
– Launched Virgin Australia Business Flyer to provide greater value and rewards
to Australian small businesses
– A host of significant customer improvements, including the re-opening and
refresh of lounges, with the introduction of new sensorial experience
enhancements
– A commitment to a net-zero emissions target by 2050 as part of ongoing
efforts towards more sustainable flying
These are just the first wave of initiatives, with more roll outs to come.
Says Dave Hartmann, strategy partner at Special: “We’re big believers in purpose-driven experience design, so being able to partner with Virgin Australia on signature moments in their journey is such an honour.”
This new chapter of change for the airline is expressed through an integrated brand campaign. At the heart of the campaign hero film is the airline’s greatest asset – its people, and the commitment to customer service Virgin Australia has long been well known for.
‘Bring on Wonderful’ is part ambition, part mission statement, and part injection of some much-needed fun and optimism in Australian air travel. The campaign focuses on Virgin Australia’s diverse crew and passengers coming together to call for a more wonderful way to fly. The campaign includes cinema, TV, outdoor and digital, with messaging spanning brand as well as key proof points across Velocity Frequent Flyer, Virgin Australia Business Flyer, experience, value and service.
Says Julian Schreiber, co-CCO, Special: “It’s a really powerful insight that the airline category has been by default just aspiring to achieve a nice flight. Virgin Australia being ready to play at a much higher level has given us an incredible mission to work towards.”
‘Bring on Wonderful’ marks the first major campaign since the rollout of the new logo and brand identity developed via Special – borne from the same vision and mission, the brand identity refresh is designed to transform even the smallest of touchpoints into an uplifting, sensorial experience full of personality and life.
Says Adam Shear, head of Special Design: “The Virgin Australia brand identity should reflect and evoke energy and vivacity. Never stale, dull or lifeless – it is dynamic and full of life, movement and emotion. Our photography style and colour palette should make you feel something, with the tailfin device at the beating heart of it. It acts as a window into the life and personality that we connect people to, and it ensures that the brand always has the right energy to it.”
With ‘Middle Seat Lottery’ and Reverse Kid’s Meals and in-lounge experiences now launched, new experiences will continue to be rolled out.
Find out more about the mission and initiatives of ‘Bring on Wonderful’ at the campaign landing page.
Virgin Australia Group
Libby Minogue – Chief Marketing Officer
Paul Jones – Chief Customer & Digital Officer
Erina Chapman – Brand Marketing Leader
Ali Dunn – General Manager, Customer Strategy & Insights
Alex Plummer, General Manager, Digital
Ange Grant, Head of Paid Media, Retail and Content
Tiffany Rowe, Retail & Revenue Growth Leader
Lauren Barripp, Brand Marketing Specialist
Matt Weston Green, Brand Marketing Advisor
Helen McEnery, Marketing Manager, SME
Matthew Ongarello, Head of Consumer PR & Social
Lauren Hunt, Consumer PR Manager
Special Australia
CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICERS – Tom Martin & Julian Schreiber
CREATIVE DIRECTORS – Jade Manning & Vince Osmond
CREATIVES – Toby Moore & Luke Thompson, Lauren Regolini & Locki Choi, Jack Wall & Phil Harkness
HEAD OF DESIGN – Adam Shear
DESIGNERS – Abbey Swinn, Maggie Webster
CEO – Lindsey Evans & Cade Heyde
STRATEGY PARTNER – Dave Hartmann
GENERAL MANAGER – Lily Waters
TEAM LEAD – Rachel McEwen
BUSINESS DIRECTOR – Sarah Calver, Annie Millar, Meri Stewart, Priya Addams Williams
BUSINESS MANAGER – Brynee Roche
STRATEGISTS – Will Moore, Georgia Thomas
HEAD OF FILM PRODUCTION – Sevda Cemo
INTEGRATED PRODUCER, SOCIAL – Steph Wilkinson
SENIOR STILLS PRODUCER – Sonia Ebrington
DIGITAL DIRECTOR – James Simmons
DIGITAL PRODUCER – Stacey Szabo
SPECIAL MADE EDITOR SOCIAL – Ollie Knocker / Fraser Kelton
PHD
GROUP BUSINESS DIRECTOR – Erin Hudson
STRATEGIST – Remi Baker
BUSINESS DIRECTOR – Jeremy Hooper GROUP
DIGITAL DIRECTOR – Andie Potter
PLANNING DIRECTOR – Riya Thakerar
INVESTMENT MANAGER – Hugh Davidson
PRODUCTION COMPANY – DIVISION
DIRECTOR – Sanjay De Silva
CINEMATOGRAPHER – Max Walter
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – Genevieve Triquet
PRODUCER – Sarah Nichols
EDIT HOUSE – THE EDITORS
EDITOR – Ryan Bouchier
POST PRODUCER – Adrian Konarkski
POST PRODUCTION – FIN DESIGN AND EFFECTS
COLOURIST – Matt Fezz
FLAME ARTIST – Mikey Brown
PRODUCER – Isabelle Howarth/Emily Newbould
MUSIC
ARTIST – El Plastico
PUBLISHER – Public Press
SOUND STUDIO – Rumble Studios
SOUND ENGINEER – Cam Milne
PHOTOGRAPHY – Pool Collective
PHOTOGRAPHERS – Ingvar Kenne & Sean Izzard
RETOUCHER – Mark Sterne & Visual Thing
48 Comments
This is VERY good for a walking-talking ad.
Who is she? Where has she been? Incredible.
Ouch @ the souvenir t-shirt
Calm down. Average at best
Play school were looking for her details for story time I heard
A middle seat lottery is a very cool idea
Finally a virgin ad that is more than a hollow promise. Middle Seat Lottery is tops.
Wonderful vibes, amazing talent. Go Jade and team. Also reflective of the Virgin vs any other domestic airline experience.
Pretty wonderful indeed. Casting, credibility, differentiation, aspiration.
Visualised radio script.
Not even the power of a thousand whip pans can save it…
This is last ad with wacky transitions. I think we can universally agree the dead horse is flogged.
LOVE the middle seat lottery! And I’m a tall flyer who can barely fit the window or middle economy seats.
Hello. 1974 called and they want their ad back
Too chaotic. The music. The vibe. So frustrating, flying every week. This music really encapsulates the airports. No offence. I want reassurance. I want reliability. I want quality. I want calm. I want the old Qantas service back.
Could anything ring more hollow than an airline in 2022 promising ‘Wonderful’?
Welcome to 2007.
I like it. Also like that they are doing. Not just saying.
#metoo
This should have positioned as a solve on the qantas failures we all know of.
But instead its a, here is an all singing all dancing nightmare of nothing.
And that talent is the pits – 21 year olds don’t fill me dreams of good service. Virgin now hiring from Maccas.
I came from Maccas and flew for Virgin Australia as a Cabin Supervisor for 10 years. Some of the most hard working and lovely crew all started at Maccas. Nothing wrong with hiring from Maccas.
Lawdy, the spate of overly-slick, dripping with attitude, traditional-client-sticking-it-to-the-man spots lately… Who needs an idea when you can just dazzle viewer’s with an avalanche of hip transitions and an LED on a baggage trolley? And no, twisting ‘Have a nice trip’ to ‘Have a wonderful’ trip is not an idea.
7-11, Fly Buys, Google and now Virgin – can’t I just get a Slurpee or book a plane ticket without DOING IT LIKE A BOSS?
Even Ian Pons Jewel has stopped doing edgy transitions.
As a Virgin customer, the social hype around this was terrible and went down like a fart in a spacesuit. It was being hyped as an “exciting announcement coming” and plugging it every day. Was this announcement the return of long-haul international flights? No. Was it the addition of new wide-body fleet? No. Was it the introduction of a new status tier? No. Was it anything that could be deemed an exciting announcement? No.
It was an ad campaign. As an ad person AND as a customer, I was so underwhelmed by the announcement it doesn’t matter how ‘wonderful’ or bad the actual film is.
one of the best hype reels I’ve ever seen! can’t wait to see the ad.
Lotto is cool, execution is super boring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eacVawCbXAY
haha… That was gold!
“The Virgin Australia brand identity should reflect and evoke energy and vivacity. Never stale, dull or lifeless – it is dynamic and full of life, movement and emotion. Our photography style and colour palette should make you feel something, with the tailfin device at the beating heart of it. It acts as a window into the life and personality that we connect people to, and it ensures that the brand always has the right energy to it.”
If the tail fin is the beating heart, why is it not used (other than the logo) in the ads? No window to be seen there? Not really a code then is it?
The colour palette, from what can be seen here, looks like Qantas with its shades of red. Landscapes and lifestyle shots look pretty generic.
The images shown in the story don’t align with the claims at all… or else the imagery provided is no kind of showcase for the identity work. Either way, it’s a bad look.
Pie in the sky advertising. An amorphous, unsubstantiable claim delivered with a degree of verve and enthusiasm, but in the end it’s a hollow promise no matter what clothes you dress it up in.
Once upon a time, like when Virgin was launched, this might have been enough. It’s But not now.
I disagree. When Virgin Airlines launched, they had great lines – like ‘Keeping the air fair.’ A real point of difference, the work had much more substance than this.
Toupée. Hard act to follow, but this is nice enough.
Makes being lumped there slightly less shite, although on flight prizes would be good to have too. You get get the little seat lights to blink in a circle like the wheel of fortune – lands on you, free drink! Yeah…welll.
I do have an issue with all these brand platforms, and missions, if you flip and change what the supposedly core idea of your brand is every 2 years, then you’ll end up with zero consensus (that you have control of) on the collective perception of what your brand is.
Why can’t you just call it a campaign?
At best a tagline. I flew Virgin on Saturday – nothing wonderful or different about that trip. Wifi drops out, shitty menu options – same same. An advertising line that the product doesnt deliver to ….not so wonderful.
All these neggo comments are obviously coming from disgruntled agencies. I love this work – it has an edge, an idea, a mission and it made me smile.
Just got of a Virgin flight from Melb to Sydney, 100% absolutely, categorically nothing wonderful about it!!!!!!!!
You obviously didn’t have the right flight attendant.
childfree flights!
Nice execution, poor strategy. They’ll never be able to deliver on what they’ve promised.
“Don’t you want to write something different and memorable? What’s the point of spending millions to be invisible?”
Ad rap by MCOG Rights Reserved
What in the queerbaiting hell is this. Can you guys get back to running an airline when you’re finished swanning around the terminal?
Can we pleeeease calm down on the over saturated fruit salad colour palette, whip pan transitions thing that’s still going on….not every message in advertising suits the same treatment….watch this ad date within 6 months
I like the campaign. Qantas would be ‘fly dreadful’ at the moment – the campaign references Qantas’ problems by offering an alternative airline of ambition. Many of the changes at Virgin have been introduced incrementally the last two years – it was time to promote these under a branding campaign to create a clear point of difference. The key will be to sustain the campaign with additional benefits. The partnerships with Betty’s Burgers (the Lounge) and Boost Juice (Menu) are interesting and further brand the airline as mainstream rather than corporate. The weakness of the campaign is that there are so many initiatives – it is busy and ‘fly nice’ to ‘fly wonderful’ is mechanistic. No one says ‘nice’. There are many ways to bring rusted on Qantas passengers over to Virgin and the 30 percent cheaper business class airfares are a winner. It was fun watching the entitled 1A Qantas passenger being served last in the cabin the other day. It’s much more democratic in Virgin Business. The friendliness of the crew made the man thaw behind his copy of ‘The Australian’. The staff are a clear point of difference and this campaign plays to the airline’s strengths and little tweaks around the edges. It will always be a seat and tray table in the air. A little more irony in the campaign would have been fun and wise. ‘Wonderful’ is difficult to deliver. Good luck to Jayne and her team. The airline is back in profit and this should help drive market share.
1A would have been fed last because they’re crew.
How it took two photographers to create these stills is absolutely beyond me
Oh great, another one of those awful verb/adjective taglines that any primary school teacher knows makes zero sense.
Don’t listen to these grubs. I think it’s absolutely wonderful.
And all customers really want is some actual leg room and wider seats. Talk about being out of touch with your customers. This is just a campaign to impress others in the industry with the production.
I’m not sure what happened to blocking a scene or craft lately, seems to have been replaced by a bunch of still shot ideas connected by flimsy transitions a teenager in after effects could do.
Cheap shallow spectacle disguising a lack of substance maybe suits the airline presently.
Regarding the Virgin Australia Wonderful ad. There’s a woman in it with reddish hair and a pram for 3 people. She says the word wonderful ………. and then I can understand another thing she mumbles. Everyone else who speaks in the ad speaks clearly and is easy to hear and understand, with the exception of this one woman. Perhaps you can improve her diction so that whatever she mumbles can be heard.
I like it , the main lady is fun and friendly , the customers look happy , good energy – still not annoying after seeing it a dozen times but that could change. I’ll definately check out Virgin’s prices on the net and then go with the cheapest/most suitable option regardless.