Virgin Trains /
Plane Relief
This award winning campaign saw us tempt domestic business air travelers off planes and onto trains.
The new Pendolino trains allowed Virgin to run a faster and more reliable intercity service than has ever been offered before. It was time to start tempting business travellers off domestic flights and onto its trains instead. Virgin enlisted us to create an promotion to target business commuters between London and Manchester.
We decided the best way for business commuters to appreciate the benefits of train travel over flying, was simply to experience it for themselves. We convinced Virgin to offer air travellers a free trial. We then targeted business travellers on their way to or from a flight via our eye-catching ‘pharmacies’ on airport express train concourses. Our sassy, fake pharmacists gave out packets of ‘Plane Relief’ a spoof medicinal aid to weary air commuters. The prescription offered a free, first class weekday train ticket in return for a midweek boarding pass from the last month between London and Manchester.
Our ‘pharmacists’ dished out 55,000 boxes of Plane Relief and redemption was higher than anticipated with a massive 6% taking up the offer. This success led to £857,000 worth of new revenue generated within the three months following the campaign. Media coverage included The Guardian, Sky News and The Sunday Mirror, representing a reach of three million and saw us notch 5 awards within the UK, European and Global promotions and marketing sector.
O2 /
Social Studies
Our goal was to shake off a stigma and reach a new audience. The strategy we designed for O2 & Blackberry saw us tour the product around the country reaching their desired new audience, students. As a result our client saw their popularity soar within this group by 57%.
O2 and BlackBerry approached us to help increase the consideration of the new O2 & BlackBerry tariff and handsets to a younger, consumer and student based audience. The intention was to shake off the BlackBerry stigma as a business phone and increase their share amongst traditional handset sales. Our brief also focused on improving both the O2 and BlackBerry brand perception scores with students.
Our strategy saw the creation of an engaging integrated experience to increase brand awareness of the new O2 BlackBerry tariff. By aligning a partnership with Play.com we were able to introduce a student specific tariff enabling benefits for our target audience. Our use of social studies as the creative platform developed a Student Brand Manager program that enabled students to trial the BlackBerry handsets and promote the campaign.
The events side of our strategy saw the running of an Outdoor Study Area that we toured to 30 selected universities to promote the tariff and handsets. Inside our bespoke O2 dome our target audience got to grips with everything the tariff and handset had to offer. An interactive microsite was also developed to drive online purchasing.
Through our approach we successfully engaged with 17, 845 students allowing unprecedented interaction with O2 BlackBerry. A further 284,800 students were reached through non-funded radio and print PR. As a result students were 26% more likely to purchase a contract with O2 and BlackBerry following our strategy and 57% of students have an improved opinion of O2 and BlackBerry after our campaign.
Dr. Martens /
50th Anniversary
April 1st, 2010 marked Dr. Martens’ 50th Anniversary. Known for their classic 8-eye boot, they are a brand that defines individuality and non-conformism. They’ve been adopted by various subcultures throughout their history and continue to be a brand synonymous with rebellion.
In order to reinforce their position in the market, herald their connection with music & youth culture, we created a campaign that was rooted in music in order to reinvigorate wearers of old, challenge current perceptions about the brand & their product as well as introduce new consumers to Dr. Martens.
To leverage their heritage in music, we commissioned 10 contemporary musicians from various genres of music around the world to reinterpret cult classic tracks from the brand’s history. Video directors were then curated to transform the tracks into music videos. The result was a body of work that illustrated the link to youth culture while celebrating their heritage as well as showcased a range of new product that is currently redefining Dr. Martens.
The tracks & music videos were complimented with an intimate documentary on the artists during the recording process. As a digital based execution the hub of the campaign resides on drmartens.com, where all videos can be viewed as well as free track downloads are available.