Virgin Mobile's new TVC looks at doing away with the extras in life

Taking its tongue-in-cheek humour forward, Virgin Mobile has rolled out a new campaign promoting its new offering, 'New 50 paisa STD Local'.

"The main objective of the campaign is to announce the launch of a path breaking tariff that will enable Virgin Mobile users to make all local and STD calls at just 50 paisa per minute to any network," said Prasad Narasimhan, chief marketing officer, Virgin Mobile. "Unlike other similar offers from competition wherein a separate pack needs to be purchased to avail this benefit, Virgin Mobile's 'New 50 paisa STD Local' offer is a default (base) tariff plan. With this default offer, Virgin Mobile will be the only brand to not discriminate between local or STD calling rates as a base tariff and offer the best value for money to the consumer."

Built around the creative concept, 'Remove the extras in life', the Bates-created 40-second TVC is shot inside a train compartment where the protagonist eyes a pretty girl sitting opposite him, albeit with her mother.

The mother, on the other hand, is miffed with her husband for not calling due to high STD rates. The young, urban hero, personifying Virgin's target audience, offers his mobile to the mother for making the STD call, thus, 'removing the extra'  and clearing the way for a stress-free chat with the girl.

"We are essentially tapping the 18-24 year olds of India who love to keep in touch with their close friends scattered across the country but are unable to do so now due to high cost of STD pack and unaffordable STD calling rates," explained Narasimhan. "We want to offer a deal with no hidden extras so that they can talk for as long with their outstation friends as they do with their friends within the city."