Virgin kicks off loyalty push to target 15 million customers

The group wants to tap into a sense of ‘Virgin-ness’ with new campaign promoting the variety of rewards across its Virgin Red loyalty scheme.

Virgin is targeting its 15 million UK customers with a new campaign for global rewards programme Virgin Red.

Created in collaboration between Glow London and Truant London, the ‘Whatever Blows Your Bubble’ campaign will run across TV, video-on-demand, radio, social and display ads. The creative features a young woman chewing bubble gum while daydreaming about blowing a bubble so big that she could take off and fly.

As Virgin Red marketing director Linn Frost explains, the idea was to embody the spirit of seizing a moment and grabbing life with both hands.

“It embodies the spirit of ‘Virgin-ness’. We worked on the concept while we were deep in lockdown and the thought of blowing a bubble and floating across the city felt so refreshing,” she says.

“It’s the exact feeling we want our members to have – to embrace and enjoy every moment. We had the bubblegum idea before we found the song. When we brought them together, we knew that was it.”

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The ad, which is set to an orchestral cover version of Nena’s 1984 hit 99 Red Balloons, works as an analogy for how the Virgin Red programme operates. The scheme is designed to reinforce the notion of Virgin as one company, introducing users to less well-explored corners of the group.

The expanded rewards proposition spans everything from smaller, everyday treats like a coffee or vegan sausage roll from Greggs, to “extraordinary experiences” available across the Virgin group, like cinema and concert tickets, and holidays. 

Virgin Red members can also opt to donate their rewards to charity, as part of the Points for Good programme, with the Edinburgh Food Project and National Autistic Society among the initial beneficiaries.

The programme was originally slated to launch when the first national lockdown hit in March 2020. The pandemic forced the team to pause the roll out and conduct a soft launch last summer via users of the Virgin Red Vaults app.

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