Virgin Experience Days has launched its 2016 marketing Christmas campaign, with an animated film which aims to remind people of the everlasting magic of memories.
Set to the track ‘Adventurers’, by singer/songwriter, Holley Maher, the film features a young couple exchanging Christmas gifts. The man is puzzled when he receives an empty photograph frame – but then realises his present also includes a Virgin Experience Day gift pack. A short animation then zooms in on some of the couple’s adventures together, memories now framed on the mantelpiece and never forgotten.
The advert, featuring the strapline ‘What memories will you create this Christmas?’ launched on the online retailer’s web site last week and will feature in a digital, social and YouTube campaign including the hashtag #ChristmasToRemember.
The campaign builds on the current UK lifestyle trend towards ‘doing stuff not buying stuff’, after Virgin Experience Days saw a pickup in demand for experience gifts as the UK turns its back on material things.
The same basic creative approach will be used across both Virgin Experience Days’ consumer-facing communications and its business-to-business operations.
Tim Watkins, Virgin Experience Days Director of Sales & Partnerships, says: “The Christmas campaign highlights experiences as the new riches. As a nation, we’ve reached ‘peak stuff’ and consumer priorities are changing from ‘buying stuff’ to ‘doing things’ as we spend more on holidays, entertainment and eating out to service a lifestyle. Naturally, this trend is reflected in our corporate sales activity, with customers and employees increasingly choosing experiences over gift cards for material goods. Forward thinking businesses have identified this trend and we’ve seen a marked increase in incentive programmes focusing on experience benefits and rewards.“
The animation, developed in-house by Virgin Experience Days Lead Designer, Craig Francies, has been created using Modo. It can be viewed at https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/christmastoremember and on the Virgin Experience Days YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hq7Asvv00
