Usain Bolt in Virgin territory

By: Gary Quinn, Head of Media, Tangerine PR, Manchester

Have you seen the new Virgin Media ad? Yes the one where Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt dons a blonde goatee beard and pretends to be Richard Branson?

I only ask because it really tickled me and I thought it worth doing a quick (no pun intended) little blog about.

Bolt, the world’s fastest man, was snapped-up by Branson to front a multi-million pound campaign to promote Virgin Media’s new superfast broadband service. The company is investing £110m to double the broadband speed for its 4.1m internet customers over the next 18 months (of which I am one!).

The TV ad, to be supported by ads in other media including national press and billboards, shows Bolt in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to impersonate Branson by taking over his office and donning his trademark blonde goatee.

The ad campaign, which has been created by agency DDB London, introduces the strapline "Keep Up" that Virgin Media will use in future marketing activity.

And I have to say it really hit the mark on a number of fronts. First off the team has very simply and effectively got across the speed message by using the fastest man in the world to front the campaign.

Of course this sounds obvious now but in an initial brainstorm to discuss how to promote doubling the speed of customers broadband would you have thought of Usain Bolt? Would you, really?

But by taking a step back from the product and looking at the bigger picture of what it is all about I imagine the whole campaign came down to one word – speed. It’s all about speed. And who better to personify speed than the fastest man in the world – especially in the year of the London Olympics.

However this is only half the tale; what happened next is even better. The creative team avoided all the obvious sportsman endorsement clichés and injected humour into the campaign that helped set it apart.

Of course a big cheque from Richard Branson will, no doubt, have helped persuade Bolt to don the hideous goatee beard and “pretend” to be the Virgin boss.

But let’s not forget, ideas are free and these ideas are brilliant.

Plus credit must go to the boss man himself, who is as always unafraid to send himself up. Humour – done well – is a great way to make your campaign really stand out.

I just wish that more firms would realise this and see that taking your brand and yourself seriously all the time isn’t necessarily the right way forward; taking risks and being different can work too.

Branson didn’t make a fortune by staying safe, nor by doing things by the book. And Usain Bolt has always been his own man. Together they make great bedfellows and a truly inspired marketing campaign.