In a move to promote its expansion to multiple destinations in the US, a new nationwide Virgin America marketing campaign likens its flight experience to that of a night club.
The creative, developed in conjunction with San Francisco-based ad agency Eleven Inc., features a series of headlines — including “Arrive beautifully,” “Everybody needs an outlet,” and “Talk behind people’s backs” — representative of Virgin America’s brand theme “This is how to fly.”
“We received a lot of great feedback from fliers and it really focused on how different the flying experience was, so our campaign was developed to be experiential,” said Porter Gale, VP of marketing at Virgin America.
The campaign marks the largest media buy for the airline since it launched in 2007. However, the exact amount spent on the campaign remains undisclosed. Ads will run in banner and display ads, magazines, newspapers, wrapped hybrid taxis and bus shelters.
The campaign is aimed at what Gale calls savvy travelers — urban dwellers who travel four to 10 times a year.
“We rolled out a lot of new travel destination in the past couple of months and wanted to get the word out,” he added.
The campaign will debut in a rolling launch over the next three weeks in Virgin America’s current markets, which include San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, DC. The campaign will run through May and plans to launch a subsequent campaign are already in the pipeline.
While the features of a Virgin American flight are similar to those found on other flights — including video systems with a number of movie channels and video games for each passenger — the new campaign aims to suggest that flying on Virgin America is like going out on the town, by highlighting the planes’ low purple lighting and black leather seats with white shell designs.
