Virgin Australia puts the joy back into flying in latest major brand campaign via DDB Sydney
Virgin Australia is putting the joy back into flying with a charming brand campaign via DDB Sydney, that centres on a very unlikely character.
The campaign delivers the feeling of flying with Virgin Australia launched with the film: ‘Up, Up and Toupee’.
Virgin Australia undertook extensive research on drivers for airline travel within Australia, which informed the development of the campaign. This research revealed the airline needed to re-emphasise the famous Virgin personality and the overall customer experience.
As a result, DDB and Virgin Australia worked together to determine how best to communicate this customer experience and Virgin personality through the new brand positioning.
The new brand positioning, ‘Feel good flying’, is designed to create an emotional connection with Australians and cut through a cluttered market.
Set to Jo Cocker and Jennifer Warnes’ iconic tune ‘Up Where We Belong’, the ad follows Wiggy, the unconventional lead character, as he rediscovers how amazing flying is, and the joy of seeing the big, wide world on his way to the family’s holiday destination.
Brought to life by Revolver/Will O’Rourke’s Gary Freedman and Moving Picture Company, it’s a journey of ease and effortlessness, and most importantly, fun.
Virgin Australia general manager, brand and marketing, Michael Nearhos, says it is a natural fit for the Virgin brand to reach people on an emotional level: “We know our Virgin personality is so widely loved, and we are so proud to hero this through our new brand campaign. Our focus from a customer experience perspective is always on how our famous service and product make people feel, and it’s really important to us to emphasise this in our new brand positioning.”
Says Tara Ford, chief creative officer, DDB Sydney: “In a complicated world, it’s been an absolute pleasure to create something that’s so unique, simple and joyful. Fun but with an edge of cheekiness and irreverence – which is perfect for recapturing and igniting the Virgin Australia brand.”
The integrated TV campaign will be supported by digital, print, out of home, and cinema.
Virgin Australia:
Danielle Keighery – Chief Experience Officer
Michael Nearhos – General Manager Brand & Marketing
Rapthi Thanapalasingam – Head of Consumer & Partner Marketing
Erina Chapman – Brand & Retail Marketing Leader
Alex Davey – Brand Marketing Specialist
DDB:
Ben Welsh – Chief Creative Officer, DDB Australia
Tara Ford – Chief Creative Officer, DDB Sydney
David Jackson – Creative Partner
Jeremy Hogg – Creative Lead
Richard Shaw – Creative Lead
Kate Sheppard – Managing Partner
Claire Hynes – Senior Business Director
Ciara Moloney – Business Manager
Tash Johnson – Lead Senior Producer
Leif Stromnes – Managing Director, Strategy & Innovation
Caroline Ghatt – Planning Partner
Joseph Smeaton – Planning Director
James Davis – Senior Planner
Casey Machen – Project Director
Kelly Barnaby – Project Manager
Cushla Morton – Senior Print Producer
Film:
Production Company – Revolver / Will O’Rourke
Director: Gary Freedman
Managing Director: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer: Pip Smart
Producer: Alex Kember
Edit House: ARC EDIT
Editor: Peter Sciberras
Post Production: Moving Picture Company, UK
VFX Post Producer: Philip Whalley
Sound: Song Zu
Sound Engineer: Abigail Sie / Simon Kain
Music Supervision: Level Two Music
Music Supervisor: Karl Richter
Casting: Peta Einberg / Ben Parkinson Casting
Photography:
Production Company – Photoplay
Photographer – Michael Corridore
Executive Producer – Alison Lydiard
40 Comments
Virgin for people with toupes – what a weird thought.
Oh fuck off. This is nice. I bet you’re a sad little man in real life.
I am actually relatively tall, happy and don’t need to resort to swearing at people to get my point across. Nice is actually the weakest of platitudes you could give anything, but I guess you must be an art director or is it UX you do?
Guessing you’re a planner by your use of platitudes.
So your opinion really isn’t relevant.
Keep guessing pixel pusher
Bravo. Big list of credits and every single one of them deserves a pat on the back.
And refreshing. Australian advertising isn’t dead.
Amazing brand defining work. Emotion driven advertising that shines.
Original thinking that stands out from the industry norm. No doubt it will collect gold, gold and more gold.
I detect a high level of sarcasm in these above comments!
This is great. Fun. Memorable. Brave work.
Like. Well done to all involved.
Love it, Love it. Well done all.
Great ad. What was it for again?
This is for sure one of the strongest this year. Congrats
OH HIS WIG FLIES, HAHAHAHAH
Everyone in front of the telly LOL’d when this came on last night. Tick. Job done.
as a 50 year olds synthetic hair. got it
Yeah yeah advanced air.
Great stuff Rich.
This made me laugh out loud from all of the way over here in NZ. Well done. Bloody great.
Yeah but why did they need to go to MPC to do it? Oh right so the agency and prod co could get a trip out of it I see I see. Nothing’s changed has it.
Well done guys. This is great. 🤘
Really bad…just a silly execution with no idea.
this looks like the glue society’s qantas ad, only with a wig. like a bad benny hill gag really.
Brilliant!! Nice work everyone. 👊
love it, nice one
Caught my attention when I saw it over the weekend. Strange. I like it.
It’s November 12.
This is the first piece of work of 2019 that I wish I’d done.
Well done all.
Hats off!
Ditto
It looks nice but it doesn’t make any sense. Of course, ads don’t need to always make sense but this isn’t a Cadbury gorilla. It’s loosely connected to the strategy. With a loosely connected soundtrack. This doesn’t make it a bucket of shit. But it also doesn’t make it an example of excellence.
It’s just a well meaning but suboptimal investment.
Try again!
This put a smile on my face. Thanks for that.
Should’ve been a merkin.
Gary’s a genius!
It’s a funny nice idea brought to life well but it’s far from needing a genius to direct this. In fact I think the direction was a little obvious.
And the director doesn’t come up with the idea, that’s the creatives job isn’t it? Have enough budget and an amazing post production company on side and it’s not that difficult, especially if there is a decent idea to work with in the first place.
Still good and great for Australia.
Wtf? Why? Complete fucking garbage.
Hello…. microphone tap… hello… to all the commenters above.
This is what good advertising looks like. Blew his wig off. Easy idea, simple to understand.
Go back to your planning sessions, your Edms and whatever else you were doing.
Leave the good ads to the experts and wonder why you’ll never get a client like this.
Bu bye.
If you don’t like this, why the hell are you on an advertising blog?
Won more awards than all the comments combined – still, as a punter – this is fucking excellent.
When no one working at an ad agency thinks there’s a problem handing off work to O/S post companies, especially ones as expensive as MPC, when there are shops here, big and small, who can do the same work. Literally the same damn work. But as soon as you all get a fat budget you want to fly off, or if not fly off then at least brag on your insta about the O/S post you managed to wrangle. We’re all flipping dying here in post in Australia and not a single AU agency is willing to take a stand to support us, when we’ve supported you for so long, with all your stupid director’s cuts and pre-roll versions at no extra cost.