Grand LIA   |   Winners   |   Finalists

Radio
Script Writing

Finalist

Entrant: Y&R South Africa, Johannesburg
Virgin Atlantic - Premium Economy
"53 Seconds"
  • Corporate Name of Client:
    Virgin Atlantic
  • Client Account Director:
    Liezl Gericke
  • Agency Account Director:
    Kim Cupido
  • Radio Station:
    94.7
  • Agency:
    Y&R South Africa , Johannesburg
  • Global Chief Creative Officer:
    Tony Granger
  • Chief Creative Officer:
    Graham Lang
  • Executive Creative Director:
    Rui Alves
  • Creative Director:
    Bibi Lotter
  • Copywriter:
    Marjolein Rossouw
  • Agency Producer:
    Nikki Shackleford
  • Recording Studio:
    Produce Sound , Johannesburg
  • Audio Engineers:
    Louis Enslin
    Johan Theron
  • Voice-over:
    Jenna Ramos Violente
  • Description of the Project:
  • Virgin Atlantic offers one of the most spacious Premium Economy airline seats in the world. We needed to raise awareness of this, but also bring this seat's comparatively greater width to life on radio. At 53cm (21 inches), it’s 5cm (2 inches) wider than the average seat in its class.
    To demonstrate this difference between Virgin Atlantic’s seats and their competitors', we created a new system of measurement where each second of the radio ad was equal to one centimeter of seat width. Our spot therefore runs for 53 seconds to match Virgin Atlantic’s 53cm wide seats. Using this simple, yet innovative, mechanism, the listener can now experience Virgin Atlantic's compatible seat width long before booking an airplane seat just by using their ears.
    Whilst using a tinge of dry British style humour synonymous with Virgin Atlantic, the writing had to be meticulously crafted to not only intrigue the listener, but to also tell the story of the centimetre per second relation whilst simultaneously keeping true to it.
    As the airline that “Flies in the face of ordinary”, this originally crafted spot conveys one of Virgin’s distinguishing features in a very unordinary way through radio, while simultaneously demonstrating the brand’s essence.