Ever wondered how much other people spend on Christmas presents you don’t want?

Introducing… “WHERE I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS”.

A ground-breaking new way to buy a ticket – by asking friends and family to pool their money towards a Virgin Atlantic flight, rather than waste it on the usual unwanted gifts.

All you needed to do was:

- set up an online account, and select a destination

- invite your social network to contribute funds in the run-up to Christmas

- turn your crowd-sourced funds into a flight, by booking direct with Virgin Atlantic.

INNOVATIVE MECHANIC

Our idea takes the classic Christmas gift-card… and collides it with peer-to-peer crowdfunding.

To do this, we took the existing Virgin gift-card and totally rebuilt it – enabling multiple people to load money onto one card using a custom-built website.

SEAMLESS EXPERIENCE

We designed an intuitive online journey for both gifters and recipients.

Recipients simply signed-up, selected their destination, and requested contributions via Social templates. Gifters then clicked on the link-posts to pay-in funds.

As the contributions rolled-in, recipients could track their progress, and instantly update their followers.

SMART CAMPAIGN

We cut through the Christmas noise on a limited budget.

-by kick-starting our campaign in October; before the festive clutter (/hiked media costs), but when 38% of shoppers were already buying Christmas gifts (PHD).

-by intercepting every stage of the gift-buying journey; from consideration (search, gift-guides, social, radio, VoD) to purchase (high-street OOH synced with geo-fenced mobile, experiential).

The idea soared through the Christmas noise, delivering both fame and commercial results.

-Driving a massive 50% increase in the number of Virgin gift-cards purchased YOY

-More than doubling our targets for account sign-ups and monetary contributions

-The idea was picked up by the press nationally – including The Sun, Metro, Daily Star, Cosmopolitan, Manchester Evening News –, reaching over 30 million readers

-Adding 1% to our entire Flying Club CRM database, as a direct result of the campaign

-Liberty (London’s leading luxury department store) decided to stock our gift-cards – giving Virgin Atlantic precious shelf space, and a window display, in the busiest retail period of the year

-Every single asset in the supporting advertising campaign tracked significantly higher than the category norm (Millward Brown), for Reappraisal, Different, Affinity, Branding, Enjoyment, and Recognition

-The client was so pleased with the campaign, it’s now scheduled to be an annual event