Virgin Mobile is launching a multimedia campaign to target students with
its range of services.
The campaign, through Liquid Communications, aims to win over UK
students with the chance of winning one of ten houses for a year,
rent-free.
The "big red house" campaign uses a variety of online and offline media
across 50 UK university campuses.
Activity includes fly-posters and six-sheet posters, beer mats, banner
ads and e-mails, SMS messages and flyers.
The campaign will drive students to the website
(www.virgin.com/thebigredhouse) to enter the competition and is also
intended to build general awareness among students of the Virgin Mobile
brand.
Once at the website, students answer a series of lifestyle questions and
describe their ideal house to progress in the contest.
The posters and other media feature a red wallpaper background and
display a variety of white linear icons including a house, a man, a
woman, a toilet and a pint of beer.
The campaign will run throughout the academic year, with a shortlist of
20 entries being announced in January 2002.
The finalists have until March to build support for their entry as
winners are determined by an online vote.
Lucy Atabey, Virgin Mobile's promotions and direct marketing manager,
said: "Students are a really important market. Not only now, but they'll
be the next generation of opinion-formers. It's important to reach them
effectively and not over-sell or insult their intelligence."
Gwyn Edwards worked as a designer on the campaign and Steve Bewick was
the art director. Media buying is through Manning Gottlieb Media.
