VCCP London’s new hero commercial for its campaign, Hyped, for Virgin Media lives up to its name. Its protagonist is a giant mouth rapping about the virtues of the new Virgin Media product, Stream. Stream combines the most-loved TV channels with on-demand apps, popular streaming subscriptions and must-watch movies via a small plug-and-play box powered entirely by Virgin Media broadband.
The 60-second hero spot, voiced by British Garage icon, MC Neat, made its debut on Coronation Street on ITV and Channel 4’s Celebrity Pride Gogglebox. 20-second edits of the film will run across TV, OVOD and BVOD and have been created to target customers with interests in music, gaming and entertainment, as well as families.
Virgin Media and VCCP London worked with partners, Electric Theatre Collective, Jungle, Soho Music and Duffy Sound, as well as Somesuch director, Rollo Jackson, to bring the attention-grabbing creative to life. Virgin Media also partnered with MC Neat to co-create the rap, with the Garage artist directly inspiring the mouth, which was then created using CGI.
The campaign uses a range of innovative media buys to ensure it has multiple consumer touch points and maximum awareness and impact, including 5-second blipverts, which will interrupt ad breaks, saying ‘I’ve seen the future of viewing for you’. In a Virgin Media first, the entertainment provider hijack Domino’s commercials, so the Hyped mouth can tell viewers about Stream from Virgin Media. In social, MG OMD has planned for ads to be intercepted on YouTube with contextually relevant messaging, choosing passion points relevant for Virgin media’s audience and pre-rolls against YouTube content for gaming, music and entertainment and the creative will unexpectedly reference the nature of the content the viewer is about to watch.
Amy Gilbert, marketing director at Virgin Media said, “Stream offers a convenient, flexible and more personal connected entertainment experience, bringing the future of viewing right into our customers’ living rooms. For a truly disruptive proposition, we needed a truly disruptive creative approach, so we’ve taken the idea beyond a TV spot, disrupting viewers in blipverts across ad breaks and in VOD; with a little help from MC Neat. Disruption is part of Virgin Media’s DNA and that’s exactly why it’s at the heart of this campaign.”
David Masterman, creative director at VCCP London, added, “Stream from Virgin Media is here and viewing will never be quite the same again. We picked the experts of viewing to announce Stream’s arrival. The ones who’ve watched us ask “What’s it on?” for the hundredth time. The ones who’ve seen us running around the house looking for that 4th remote. Our TVs, of course. We asked, “what if TVs are so excited about the arrival of Stream, they come to life to tell the nation all about it?”
Credits
Client: Virgin Media
Director Of Brand & Marketing: Simon Groves
Marketing Director: Amy Gilbert
Head of Campaigns: Katie Kinchin-Smith
Senior Campaign Manager: Nina Dubravec
Campaign Manager: Ben Jobson
Advertising Agency: VCCP
Creatives: Ben Evans, Adam Sears, Sophie Knox & Miles Carter
Creative Director: David Masterman
Executive Creative Directors: Jonny Parker & Chris Birch
Business Director: Kate Fitzgerald
Senior Account Director: Helena Chaplin
Senior Account Manager: Ness Burns
Planning Director: Mel Wong
Planner: Marianne Bellorin
TV Producers: Ed Thorn & Rosie Good
Creative Producers: Giselle Sambrook-Smith & Yasmin Akhavan
Design Director: Adam Edwards
Media Agency: MG OMD
Production Company: Somesuch
Director: Rollo Jackson
Editor: James Forbes-Robertson
Executive Producer: Scott O’donnell
Producer: Tarquin Glass
Post-Production: Electric Theatre Collective
Post Producers: Amie Kingsnorth & Ben Honour
Colourist: Luke Morrison
Audio Post-Production: Duffy Sound
Sound Engineer: Peter Duffy
Music Artist: Mc Neat
Music Track Producer: Lank & Tank
Music Supervision & Composition: Soho Music
Music Supervisors: Laura Harrison & Tom Kitson
