Virgin Media unveils ‘Speedy’ broadband campaign
Virgin Media has unveiled the new face of its superfast broadband campaign: Speedy Gonzales, the ‘The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico’. The first TV ad follows the famous Looney Toons character as he heads to the UK for his big new role with Virgin Media. The 40 second ad will air from Saturday with its first high profile slot during The X Factor on ITV1.
Created by DDB UK, the ad makes the most of Speedy’s pace and personality to highlight some of the benefits of ‘Super Speedy Broadband’ from Virgin Media, from downloading music to streaming TV online. The first TV ad sees Speedy start his new job only to find his employers have some very peculiar ideas of how to use him. But Speedy handles his starring role and the unexpected results with good humour, mostly due to a seemingly endless supply of cheese.
Ashley Stockwell, executive director of brand and marketing at Virgin Media said, “Speedy is the perfect celebrity partner and brings real charm and enthusiasm to our campaign. As the fastest broadband provider in all of the UK, already delivering real world speeds of 10Mb, 20Mb, 50Mb and soon 100Mb to homes throughout the country, it’s great to be teaming up with the fastest Looney Tunes character around. Speedy is a great short cut in communicating all the stand out benefits of superfast broadband and will help us stay several steps ahead of the competition.”
To kick off the ad campaign, Virgin Media today unveiled the world’s first billboard made entirely of cheese in Covent Garden, London. Created by acclaimed food artist, Prudence Staite, it stars Speedy Gonzales as the face of the ‘fastest broadband in all the UK’ and celebrates his love of cheese. Using ten types of locally sourced cheese and weighing in at 110kg the giant cheese sculpture took Prudence and her team eight days to craft, spending over 100 hours in a chilled studio to preserve the artwork.
The ads are part of a multi-million pound media campaign, which includes two further TV ads as part of a high rating TV campaign, outdoor, including ads across London Underground stations, social media and online plus print and radio to make the most of Speedy’s unique voice. The campaign is the first fully integrated Virgin Media campaign from DDB UK who were awarded Virgin Media’s advertising, direct and digital account earlier this year. Manning Gottlieb OMD developed the media communications strategy and bought the campaign activity.