Pet Project
Virgin TV Anywhere
Issue 26 | March 2013
Agency
Rapp London
Creative Team
Creative Directors: Dan Colley Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Sid Gordon Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Adam Rolfe Content Writers: Julie Adams, Terry Trower
Production Team
Lead Designer: Julian Baker Senior Graphic Artist: Jeff Osborne Print Production Manager, Guttenberg Networks: Stuart Atling Front End Developer: Doug Ferron
Other Credits
Planner: Severine Ougier Business Director: Nick Rainbow Account Directors: Dan Symons, Natalie Green Project Manager: Chris Evans Account Executive: Neil Broughton Head of Customer Communications: Natasha Conetta Campaign Manager: Kinal Popat Virgin Media Creative Director: Adrian Spooner
Background
Virgin Media is one of the biggest and best entertainment providers around. Because of this, they’re constantly looking at ways of improving their customer experience. By developing Virgin TV Anywhere – a new multi-screen proposition available online and as an app – customers can watch and manage their TV through their iPads, iPhones and laptops, wherever they are.
The role of this communication was to get Virgin Media’s most valued customers (who were huge advocates of TiVo® – their revolutionary TV service) to try this new service and feedback what they thought of it.
Idea
As Virgin TV Anywhere was a new service, it was very close to Virgin Media’s heart. As such, handing it over to just anyone to look after and play with was akin to nervously giving someone a pet to take care of. That’s why Virgin Media only selected their most trusted customers.
A small pet carrier was delivered to these unsuspecting customers. It contained a free iPad with the Virgin TV Anywhere app pre-installed on it, along with instructions on how to get the best out of it. All the customers had to do was take it out and play with it – as you would a pet.
At the same time, an engaging email was sent to other valued customers asking them to try the online service via their laptop or smartphone. The email linked through to a campaign landing page that contained a walk through of the Virgin TV Anywhere service and instructions on how to get started.
This initial communication was followed up with two further emails encouraging trial of certain features, plus a final email asking them to share their thoughts of the service.
The result was a big thumbs up.
Results
The campaign helped the Virgin TV Anywhere app reach number 3 spot in the UK app store chart, with close to 100,000 downloads in the first few days. An incredible result, which also saw a high level of mobilisation and engagement from our top 30 advocates across all 4 subsequent emails (tips emails 1 & 2, feedback email, reminder feedback email):
All emails averages Media & Entertainment industry averages
Unique open rate 65.32% 27.94%
Average unique click through 32.25% 8.56%