Virgin came to Mr President with the ambition to create a new mobile loyalty app and launch it nationwide.
We loved the idea of rewarding people for “Living a life more Virgin”. So we created Virgin Red, a living, breathing brand world, full of Virgin attitude. One that could stand alone, but also be adapted by every one of the more than 40 brands within the Virgin empire. This wasn’t just a brand identity, it was a brand defining idea which allowed Virgin Red to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk.
Our work spanned naming, logo development, brand guidelines, toolkits, UX and a huge wealth of creative assets for use across the app and by every one of the connected Virgin brands. Working alongside developers to build the app itself, and define the uniquely Virgin experience of using it.
We launched Virgin Red with a massive treasure hunt, “V Marks the Spot”, spanning the entire Virgin world of brands. The hunt was for Virgin branded coins hidden everywhere from Virgin Active’s TV screens, coffee cups on Virgin Trains, to games on Virgin Games.
The hunt was teased when Richard Branson himself “found” some buried treasure on Necker Island and broadcast this to his millions of Twitter followers. The video piqued interest ahead of the roll out across digital, social, OOH, mobile, CRM and experiential, and a whole host of partnership activations with the Virgin companies.
To get customers to download the app and embed it in their everyday behaviour, the campaign mirrored and rewarded the way we wanted customers to use the app through the app itself. This was achieved by creating daily challenges within the platform to encourage repeat usage and keep users coming back.
The app saw 70,000 users join in the first 48 hours of the campaign, and grew to 250,000 during the campaign window. Amongst these users, we achieved a weekly engagement rate of 70%, versus the 15% target. Virgin Red is now well on the way to a million unique users.
