As companies look for strong opportunities to promote their brand and reinforce their image in the vast digital landscape, many businesses and brands are turning to ever more innovative and exciting multimedia content to reach wide audiences.

Virgin is a company that has always followed an ethos of pushing their promotion, media and advertising to new innovative limits whilst reflecting the brands cheeky ‘Virgin’ edge.

Last week Virgin Airlines released a new inflight safety video. Whilst this might initially sound like the most mundane of blog updates, the animated content and creativity in the piece makes it stand out in the landscape of safety videos, and has turned it into something rather special.

The video titled TRIP – The Virgin Atlantic Safety Film is a stylish and slick animated piece that tackles its potentially dull subject matter in an inspired, exuberant and visually diverse way.

The video begins like any other in flight safety video: interior of a plane, a flight attendant instructs everyone present to pay attention to the following announcement; at this point despite being animated it hasn’t diverged from the norm. However, the video then takes a different direction; we’re introduced to our protagonist, a bored passenger, who falls to sleep in his chair. What follows is a series of wild and wacky dream sequences that follow the passenger through an array of different filmic genres, locations and settings to convey inflight safety.

For the next five minutes the audience is given a plethora of feature film references. Safety protocols such as the appropriate storage of luggage and the importance of turning off electronic devices are conveyed via Wild West saloon standoffs and 2001 A Space Odysseyesque science fiction set pieces.

The video succeeds through its clever utilisation of animation. This is done in several ways. Firstly, it’s used as a means to send up and transcend the stereotype of the dull inflight safety procedures. The fantasy dreamscapes of the bored passenger are the perfect way to visualise and diverge from the boredom often associated with these videos. It’s relatable and visually fascinating at the same time. Secondly, the animation cleverly self-references Virgin TV commercials, building upon previously established visuals associated to the Virgin brand. Finally, the use of animation has allowed the video to achieve so much visually. The amount of locations and sheer scope of activities undertaken in the 5 short minutes of the video is hugely impressive. It would be incredibly expensive to replicate this video in live action.

Overall the video has created quite a buzz. As well as being a vital tool for Re – engaging passengers in the basics of flight safety, the video is also having the added benefit of launching a whole new viral phenomenon for Virgin Airlines. The video has within a week of being launched online managed to gain over 69000 views on Vimeo along with another 62000 views on YouTube.

The video is a perfect example of what a brand can achieve when demonstrating out of the box blue sky thinking. Virgin’s unique way of communicating their message through interesting animated visuals and unique media has resulted in something that not only communicates their safety message in a memorable and innovative manner, but has been discussed in national newspapers, in forums, on air and shared extensively through social media.

This trend for creating innovative and interesting media out of potentially ‘dull’ subject areas has been rising in recent years. Nowadays motion graphics video animations are the perfect solution to discussing a complex product in a simplified and engaging manner. Viral advertising has been reinvigorating well-worn and familiar brands the world over, as we’ve previously discussed in our Blog.

LoveLove Films are the perfect company to create a similarly interesting and ground-breaking campaign. Our animation team has a strong track record in creating breath-taking imagery that grabs attention; examples of which include our recent Gabby Young and Other Animals, and TeamJobs animated videos. Similarly our multimedia has been praised for its strong narrative structure and ability to captivate audiences, such as our Joss Stone music videos that have had over 5 million views. Contact LoveLove Films at info@lovelovefilms.com or 01202 537858 today to talk about your next digital journey!

Note: We didn’t make the Virgin Atlantic inflight video. We admire it.

Written by Maxim Sorokopud

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