Britain’s Virgin Atlantic Airways has always led the pack when it comes to stylish, effective advertising that infuse modern air travel with remixed glamor and wit.
When I say effective, I mean the ads and promotional products make me want to fly Virgin to London, today, even though the closest they get to my neck of the woods is Miami and the Caribbean. In fact, Virgin helped inspire this very website with their “Jetrosexual” campaign, launched back in 2005. The airline produced a slick promotional mag with that salacious portmanteau as title, defining the category of traveler who “left terra firma behind to move business and culture forward,” and devised a captivating website reviving the Golden Age of jet travel with themed flights across the pond to London (“The Diplomat” from DC, “The Trance-Atlantic” from Miami) complete with mini-movies narrated in a husky British accent and scored by the master musicians at Red Cola.
Now, Virgin’s hit another high with its new James Bond-inspired commercial, starring a multi-hued cast of high-flying hotties in glitter, glam, and gold. My only problem is with the music: not, not, NOT feeling the whiny Muse version of “Feeling Good.” Mute the sound on YouTube and play the commercial simultaneously with my own adopted Fly Brother theme song, “Adore” by I:Cube. The images run surprisingly in-synch with the song if you start the vids as close together as possible.
Either way, Virgin Atlantic, please start flying to São Paulo soon!
Shouts to Rasheed and Troy, a couple of my jetro brethren probably heading through airport security at this very moment.
wow… i can’t believe you’ve never flown on virgin. does this mean you’ve never flown on british airways either?
in any case, flying on BA pre-virgin was sometimes a bit rough. i mean, the upper class seats were good, but i’d heard the cheap seats were pretty awful, even though you did get real silverware in them.
when virgin came along, BA stepped up its game. the “who can provide a more comfortable flight across the atlantic” battle between BA and virgin made the late 80s and most of the 90s a very beautiful thing indeed. i only later chose BA over virgin for most of my flights because of oneworld. that was the only difference, really.
that said, for my flights to the states in july, we’ll be flying virgin. the reason? my son and i are flying business class — and virgin will pick me up and take me to the airport in cape town … and will drop me off in the philadelphia suburbs whether we fly into new york or to washington. the same service is part of the plane ticket price on the flip side. it’s *wonderful*.
of course, i’m not going to be feeling the visas that i have to get for my son for both the uk and the usa, as well as the extra airport taxes because i’ll be dealing with heathrow. fooey.
I’ve flown BA, dude: my first trip to London in 2005. Last year, I flew BMI from Dublin and left for Stockholm on SAS. My other transatlantic flights have either been on Air France or Delta. Transiting through LHR has never been appealing, and since my European destinations have been spread out over the continent, I’ve not really had the reason or the opportunity to fly Virgin. I can’t speak on anybody’s business/first product besides Delta’s and Korean Air’s, as I’m usually in the colored section of the plane.