#ArriveAwesome
A pitch-winning, above-the-line-beating, gold-award-winning campaign
Virgin Trains were after a bold new brand positioning (and a new agency) to get everyone back on board.
THE IDEA: Arrive Awesome
Our idea was to make the Virgin Trains experience awesome from booking to boarding and beyond - utilising all digital and on-board touchpoints. A pitch-winner that went right above the line. Big win.
This textbook GOLD DMA Award-winning video sums it up nicely...
We refreshed the brand with a bold new tone of voice and attitude - and a lively email announced the awesomeness to the entire customer base.
‘The Race to Awesome’ got the hashtag out there, with two tweet-powered trains (#TheNorth and #TheSouth) racing against each other to an imaginary destination – AWESOME. The first to arrive won two of its supporters unlimited First Class weekend train travel for a year.
And of course, there were banners...
Making everyone fall back in love with train travel
The majority of comments on Virgin Trains' social channels had always been journey complaints - but following our campaign, positive sentiment in social media increased 3-fold. We had 6,700 entries to our Twitter competition - trouncing the 1000 forecast. And saw a 240% increase in email CTR - 50 people even tweeted about them!
We got bums on seats too, with 10,800 new customers added to the database during the initial campaign period, bringing £2.4m in additional revenue.
And best of all, our TOV lives on to this day.
