Virgin America Campaign Sets The Mood For Flying

Virgin America is boosting its ad spend this year for a fashion-conscious ad campaign in specific markets.

The company, a San Francisco-based division of The Virgin Group, will launch a new theme line, "This Is How to Fly," with a campaign created by agency Eleven, also located in S.F. The new effort rolls out to San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and New York this year. Virgin dropped previous AOR, New York-based Anomaly, late last year.

The print, newspaper, outdoor, and digital ads feature real Virgin America flight attendants. Shot inside the company's planes, the effort also highlights the on-board, mood-lighting system that fades and brightens across 12 shades, depending on outside light. The ads spotlight amenities like power outlets at seats, in-flight entertainment and telematics, and food on demand.

Headlines include "Arrive beautifully," "Everybody needs an outlet," and "Talk behind people's backs" and support the new theme line. The print campaign comprises eight ads, with specialized messaging for Valentine's Day and other holidays, and for the San Diego and Seattle launches.

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Porter Gale, vice president/marketing at Virgin America, says the magazine program delivers "a strong concentration of our target audience in our core markets. The newspaper program is built for frequency and impact." She adds that strip ads will be used across multiple sections. Ads will also appear on the front pages of newspaper sections, including news, style, business and travel.

"We are strongly considering video," she adds. "We aren't committed to television advertising in the traditional sense, but video advertising [across multiple media forms, including online, mobile, place-based] is under strong consideration for the second half of the year."

She explains that the company revamped 350 bus stops in San Francisco. "It took a lot of dialogue [with the city]," she says. The bus stops are wrapped with advertising and mural art that makes them look like the interior of a Virgin America plane. Ten of the stops have colored bulbs that mimic the company's "mood-lit" aircraft cabins.

"These programs need to be approved by multiple stakeholders--including transportation boards in each city--so we will evaluate each market individually and decide if these programs are the right way to connect our target to Virgin America beyond San Francisco."

Outdoor elements of the campaign, via a media deal with Clear Channel, include San Francisco's hybrid taxis wrapped in Virgin America signage, wild postings and radio promotions with headline DJs dangling trips to concerts in Virgin America markets.

Gale, who joined Virgin America in November from her own San Francisco-based marketing firm, Porter Gale Group, says the target is the savvy traveler. "These are individuals who travel four times to ten times a year, have higher household incomes, are quite educated, with an age range 18-64," she says. "We have a very diverse traveler base, but are tending to serve the leisure market at this time; we expect more business travelers as we expand into new markets."

Specifically, Virgin America is aiming for a nine-city destination footprint by year's end, and 30 cities by the end of 2010. The company will add San Diego on Feb. 12.

"We are trying to redefine the category," says Gale. "And we are looking at the guest experience as a way to achieve that: we are trying to make that better ... everyone admits air travel has been dehumanized; we are trying to make the entire experience better."

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