Virgin Atlantic – 25 years and still red hot!
Written by Fred Brown
Virgin Atlantic advert
As the resident retro geek at Last Exit, it will come as no surprise that I enjoyed the Virgin Atlantic ‘25 years and still red hot’ advert a great deal. Our Price records, Wimpy and a brick mobile phone – sadly destroyed in the making of the clip and therefore not available as an exhibit in the Last Exit collection – all set to the thumping tunes of Frankie goes to Hollywood. There is much to love here. And there is much to love here, to – your correspondent writing to you from (sadly) seat 42H on their VS001 flight to New York. It seems incredible that it all began so long ago – or that those of us who grew up with Virgin have now grown up. It was and remains my favourite airline, and I have flown on most of them. Us brand people sometimes have a hard time convincing sceptics of the value of branding – but you only have to look at Zavvi (closed for business 15 months after buying Virgin Records) and Absolute Radio (20% drop in listeners since changing from Virgin Radio) to see the power. I think the key to the Virgin brand is the ability to inspire and motivate both customers and their own people. The crew aboard this A340 all look just a touch over 25 themselves, but red hot? You bet.
