Virgin Mobile grows up with rebrand to focus on hanging on to customers
New logo
Old logo
Virgin Mobile is to embark on a new marketing strategy which will see the brand focus first on retaining existing customers rather than acquiring new ones.
It will also target Virgin-supporting customers who already use the Virgin Australia airline, Virgin Money and Virgin Wine.
The new strategy has been led by Nicole Bardsley, Virgin Mobile’s director of brand and communications. She said: “This is the most significant rebrand in our 12 year history. Our customer base is maturing and our brand needs to grow up.”
The positioning of “fair go for all” will shift to “we look after our own”.
Bardsley said: “It’s all about acknowledging our customers are part of our family. We will be talking to customers who have relationships with other Virgin businesses.”
Perks being given to customers who sign up to the new Virgin Mobile Irresistible Plan include a free return flight with Virgin Australia to Vanuatu, Fiji or New Zealand. The new $140 monthly plan also includes 6GB of data, $200 of international call credit, unlimited local calls and what it claims is the industry first of phone upgrades every 12 months rather than the usual 24.
Customers who sign up to Virgin Money’s Virgin Flyer credit card, buy insurance or join the Virgin Wines club get a free $50 mobile credit.
The plan will be promoted on a million Virgin Australia boarding passes.
As well as a simplified new logo, the brand has added purple and silver to its colour palette. The branding work was carried out by Generation Alliance, which has been added to the Virgin Mobile agency roster.
Photography for the campaign was shot by Max Doyle, who also appears in some of the images. Research house Pollinate helped drive the repositioning strategy.
Under the “We’re more than mobile” banner, an online video uploaded to the Virgin Mobile YouTube channel this morning features a message from Virgin founder Richard Branson talking about how he helped disrupt the music and travel businesses .
Meanwhile another message uploaded today promotes the Virgin airtime packages, underpinned with carriage on the Optus network.
Although the brand would not comment on its plans for advertising spend in the coming months, there will be no TV campaign initially, with spend focused on the less expensive channels of outdoor, print and online. Advertising will still be done by Havas Worldwide, which was behind the Doug Pitt Fair Go bro campaign last year. The company has also increased its investment in social media staff.
One channel being used by the brand will be LinkedIn, in a move negotiated by Virgin’s media agency Starcom, with sponsored stories based on audience profiling
The brand’s 74 retail stores are to be rebranded, with staff put in new uniforms which include blue denim shirts “with a splash of red”.
Virgin Mobile’s boss David Scribner, who previously led the marketing team before his promotion, said: ‘We don’t like the word telco. We want to be Australia’s most loved and irresistible brand.
Scribner emphasised that although the first priority will be retaining customers: “We will still look for growth but we want to get growth through advocacy. Our target market is Virgin admirers.”
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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They have also increased standard plans by $1
While cutting data alowances in half !!!!!!
Bye Bye Virgin
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Rebrand is definitely a great idea as they had lost their way (and loads of customers by the sounds of it).
It will be interesting to see if a new logo, a few ads, extra staff and a new phone plan will be enough…
Anyone know how their market share % has fared over the past 12 years?
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I’m a Virgin Customer, I recently had my 10-year anniversary and they gave me a night in a 4-star hotel of my choice.
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What a novel idea – let’s try and keep / look after the customers we already have. Why is this seen as revolutionary to marketers across the Telco space?
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