Virgin Media’s new ad has Usain Bolt mimicking Richard Branson

Virgin Media hasn’t always had the cleanest track record when it comes to their advertising campaigns. The broadband service provider has had several complaints brought against them as they were said to be “grossly misleading.” To refresh your memory, these were the ads that ran as follows:

For the one that was intended for online gaming, the ad read simply: “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” The other ad was for one that boasted of the ISP’s fast services: “Got the need for speed? Get ahead with 7x faster broadband. Game on … Outmanoeuvre with lower lag times.”

As a result, the ASA upheld the complaint and ruled that Virgin Media can no longer run the ads in their current form.

Virgin Media has gained attention again for their ads, but this time, in a much more positive and amusing light.

The firm has hired Usain Bolt, who is the world’s fastest man and is an Olympic gold medal-winning Jamaican sprinter, to be the frontman in their new multi-million pound advertising campaign. The ads will be directed by Seth Gordon.

The campaign will be launched with ads that feature both Bolt and Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson. The ads will be promoting Virgin’s move to provide broadband speeds that are twice as fast to their 4.1 million subscribers.

The television ad shows Bolt in an attempt to impersonate Branson by being seated in his office and sporting the founder’s traditional blonde goatie. The campaign features the line “Keep Up” that the firm will be using for future marketing projects.

Jeff Dodds, executive director of brand and marketing communications at Virgin Media, stated: “It is a brilliantly simple idea but the trick was to avoid the obvious sportsman endorsement cliches.”