w@nk.f@cky.menta//.sh/t// b@ll*cks. That’s generally the response
in the UK when you ask people how they feel about the Internet. Most
people are frightened to go near it, and would rather be tortured by
Mongolian midgets than sit in front of a screen and ’surf’. And
justifiably so, because advertising in this sector is a garbled mess of
technobabble and Web-waffle, with annoying software cascading out of
every magazine you pick up.
VirginNet intends to do for the Internet what Virgin Atlantic did for
air travel - demystify the process and make it relevant to our
lives.
Our task was not only to launch VirginNet but to convince our
grandmothers, and anyone else in the UK, to try it free for one
month.
Faced with this daunting communications challenge, we developed an
arrow.
A simple everything-you-need-to-know unit, pointing people in the
direction of what the Internet can do for them (phone number included,
of course - this is direct response).
Then we let it roam the streets. We found there was nothing you couldn’t
stick it on. Why not a dog, a lamppost, your postman’s forehead or Jay
Pond-Jones’s Prada loafers? The Internet is about everything in your
life.
The arrows are due to appear randomly in Time Out editorial, newspapers,
press ads and throughout Virgin Megastores. Once we had the simple idea,
the media had to become the most creative part. So we pointed the arrow
at John Gittings of Manning Gottlieb Media, who filled in the blanks
brilliantly.
Libby Brockoff is a partner at Mother.
