March 11, 2004 Emma Rigby, Revolution Magazine.
 
LONDON - Virgin.net has signed an exclusive three-month deal to launch a promotion with charter airline Excel Airways. 

A microsite on the Virgin.net portal, which will run till May, features an interactive quiz and details value flights, holidays and property buying tips in Mediterranean destinations in the run-up to summer. Visitors can click through to the Excel Airways site to book flights. The microsite ties in with promotional activity including a 48-hour roadblock of the Virgin.net homepage by Excel Airways to promote key brand attributes. This involves a 24-hour teaser campaign followed by a 12-hour seat sale with special fare offers. A competition on Virgin.net encourages users to upload photos of themselves getting into the holiday spirit — the first time the ISP has included photos supplied by customers on the site. Prizes are offered for the best photos.

Sarah Logan, senior sales executive at Virgin.net, said: “Virgin.net is well known for its high standard of travel audience and we have worked a long time with travel brands such as BA to promote the quality end of our travel market. By partnering with Excel Airways we are aiming to increase the depth of information available to our travel audience, improve the quality of our content, promote customer interaction and ultimately drive page impressions.” She added that Virgin.net would be promoting the partnership through email newsletters to members.

The partnership was managed by Excel Airway’s partner digital agency, Web Liquid. Web Liquid’s David Shiell said: “In addition to a quality audience profile, Virgin.net’s flexibility and willingness to work beyond a standard media plan was of tremendous value to ensure that our investment not only generated positive ROI but aligned the Excel Airways brand with the key values such as innovation, openness and fun.”

The activity across Virgin.net is part of a marketing programme launched by Excel Airways across multiple channels including digital, outdoor, television, radio and press.