Virgin Mobile Spoofs Orange in Viral Campaign

England's Virgin Mobile launched a viral campaign, called Red Academy, that spoofs competing mobile service provider, Orange. Orange had recently run a campaign extolling the virtues of the company's phone trainers who educate users about Orange's extended digital phone features. The Virgin campaign pokes fun, stating that people don't really need all those digital bells and whistles - less a set a trainers - since phones are really for calling people.

This is another in the ongoing battle between the two mobile phone giants and is representative of the type of head-to-head comparative advertising that is sorely lacking among many companies. European companies, in particular, often have to avoid direct comparisons to conform to local ad laws. The campaign was created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and was seeded and tracked by DMC.

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