IAB Creative Showcase Oct 2007, Winner
Eurobest 2007, Bronze
How do you do a ‘Green’ brief without being too po-faced or worthy about it all? When we got the ‘greener travel’ brief from Virgin Trains and saw the statistics about how compared to planes or cars, they were more environmentally friendly, we started thinking ‘if the environment had a voice, what would it be saying to us about the way we travel in the UK?’ And that led us to create actual characters for different flora and fauna.
The flora and fauna come from various parts of the UK served by Virgin Trains, so we have a London ‘IT girl’ cow, two Brummie pigs, a family of Scouse sheep, a Glasweigen hedge, and a Bee and Sunflower from Manchester.
In addition to the ads, there are two longer films. The first called Emergency Committee sits on the Virgin Trains site. It features a meeting of all the animals, chaired by a wise Owl where a discussion takes place concerning a petition asking the human population of the UK to reconsider their travel habits. The second film is a more risqué piece called Sex Party, placed on various high traffic broadcast sites, a special news report on how the out of sync seasons are playing havoc with nature and in particular it’s mating habits...
Enjoy and remember: Go greener, go cheaper : )