Virgin Mobile unveils new campaign to push free local calls

Virgin Mobile has unveiled a new campaign, to promote its latest tariff offering of free local calls, V2V. Created by Bates141, Virgin Mobile has reiterated its tongue-in-cheek humour, although this time, it is with four animated characters.

Nutan Sooda, vice president, account management, Bates141 speaks to Campaign India about the new campaign. "Bates141 was tasked with introducing another unique product offering from Virgin Mobile. We had to demonstrate that friends can now talk non-stop with all local calls between Virgin Mobile friends being free, with the new V2V tariff offering."

Speaking about the communication objective, Sooda says, "The campaign objective was to clearly communicate the relevance of the product offering in a youth's life. 'Free local calls' translates itself into a clear benefit of 'On Virgin Mobile, talking between friends can be so much fun'. Sooda adds that the creative idea was simply to 'Make stories, share stories.'

The campaign will be on air throughout the month of June.

The campaign uses four animated characters (Pebbo, the protagonist, who is portrayed as cool, witty and inventive, Stonya, suave, sexy and the only girl in the boy gang, Rocky who is large, clumsy and thick in the head and Chip, the group's geek) who are a young bunch of college going friends and who deliberately create stories and then share them with their friends over a phone call.

Watch two of the 15 sec commercials here:

Virgin Mobile V2V - Room Service from Campaign India on Vimeo.

Virgin Mobile V2V - Night Club from Campaign India on Vimeo.

View one of the outdoor ads below:

Commenting about the decision to go animated for this particular campaign, Sooda says, "These four animated characters were created almost 10 months ago to give the brand the flexibility that animation brings to the communication. However, the films made earlier were part of the bigger campaign. So in effect, this is the first time that Pebbo and his friends have been used to deliver the entire creative package." Sooda said, that 'trademark' Virgin Mobile campaigns and Pebbo have and always will be a part of Virgin Mobile's advertising.

The campaign's media mix includes TV, outdoor and radio. The creative team behind the V2V campaign includes Sonal Dabral - regional creative director, Russell Barrett - executive creative director and copywriter, Mithun Mirji - creative director and copywriter and Kunal Sawant, Preeti Verma and Umesh Rawool - art directors. The films have been made by E. Suresh of Famous House of Animation.