About Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile is a wireless communications brand that is being used by eight independent brand-licensees across the globe. Virgin Mobile branded wireless communications services are currently available in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, France, and Colombia. Virgin Mobile branded services were formerly offered in Qatar, India, and Singapore.
Each Virgin Mobile branded entity acts independently from the others and thus the service plans, handsets, and network radio interfaces vary from one country to another. In a given country, the Virgin Mobile wireless entity is typically a partnership between an existing mobile network operator or mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
Current Brand License holders
Under the current license holders of Virgin Mobile comes:
- Australia
- The United States
- Mexico
- South Africa
- The United Kingdom
- Canada
- France
- Saudi Arabia
Virgin Mobile Services Formerly offered in
- Qatar
- India
- Singapore
Objective
The objective of the Virgin Mobile is to win and stand apart in the crowded telecom market with a media budget which is comparatively less because of the stiff competition posed by the competitors.
Strategies Adopted by Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile teamed up with people at BuzzFeed in order to create a 24*7 newsroom strategy that listens to social conversations and responds with brand-relevant, timely, and interesting content. Practically speaking, the content that worked for Virgin Mobile was technology oriented, fun, and pop-culture-aware content.
BuzzFeed, an Internet media company headquartered in New York City. The firm describes itself as a ‘social news and entertainment company’ with a focus on digital technology and digital media in order to serve “the most shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video.”
Virgin is known for creating breakthrough advertising, paying their success forward, and championing the consumer.
BuzzFeed allows its audience of 25 million to engage in SuperSharing. This allows them to react, discover, and share the most trending content across the social web.
The similar approach to media of BuzzFeed and Virgin, along with the suite of the proprietary technology of BuzzFeed helped for sponsored stories to be created and optimized in real-time for a successful social advertising strategy.
One of the examples are:
The time Instagram became available on Android, Virgin quickly reacted to the change. The company’s post “11 Things No One Wants To See You Instagram” was immediately published which helped in the engaging audience with brand-relevant, fun, and most importantly timely content.
Also, this evergreen post received the second push when Facebook acquired Instagram. This move reinforced the position of Virgin as a company in tune with mobile trends and pop culture.
“Our relationship with Buzzfeed really put Virgin Mobile Live on the map. These guys know all the tricks to optimizing viral content. They taught us the crucial difference between being funny and being shareable.” — Ron Faris, Head of Brand Marketing, Virgin Mobile USA
In order to evaluate the impact of the content strategy on perceptions of the user, Virgin Mobile along with BuzzFeed enlisted Vizu, an online ad technology company whose solutions allow publishers and advertisers to measure and optimize Brand Lift in real-time.
With the help of an intelligent survey-based method, the study measured affinity of the company based on
- Whether a viewer had no exposure at the content
- Viewed the content because of the paid media or
- Received the content via social sharing. For instance, a Facebook post or through a friend’s tweet.
Results Achieved By Virgin Mobile
The audience on BuzzFeed overwhelmingly embraced the content of Virgin Mobile on BuzzFeed’s platform.
Response of the users
- “Virgin Mobile is a company that understands technology and culture”
- “Virgin Mobile is a brand I like and relate to”
There was a cent percent increase in the Brand Lift. Also, those who received sponsored stories of BuzzFeed via social mediums were 24.1% more likely to view Virgin Mobile positively.
Learnings
- In order to influence product consideration and brand affinity, branded social content is a must.
- The working of brands like Virgin with BuzzFeed shows how efficiently one can create a content that is shareable.
- The role of content in the uplifting brand is crucial. Timely and brand-relevant content which evokes the interest of readers can help a company to create awareness and likeability of the brand.
- Since content marketing is one of the most influential methods in digital marketing, therefore, brands which are not leveraging on this mode of online marketing are on the losing end most of the times.
Found this interesting? You can also learn how Virgin Mobile’ digital marketing strategy achieved lowest subscriber acquisition cost.