Virgin Blue has taken advertising to another sky-high level, turning one of its B737-800 aircraft into a flying billboard to advertise Gillette’s new powered razor, the M3Power.
Virgin Blue claims the aircraft, which has been labelled the ‘Gillette M3Power Plane’, is the biggest mobile billboard or ‘skyboard’ ever seen in Australia.
The entire body of the aircraft, apart from the well-known Virgin branded tail and winglets, will be painted in M3Power’s signature black, with green lines to tie in with the rest of the campaign elements.
Virgin Blue ceo Brett Godfrey said the decision to turn its aircraft into flying billboards was exciting.
“But one not taken lightly,” Godfrey said. “We’re very protective of our brand.”
He claimed other companies had wanted to use the aircraft as billboards in the past but had been knocked back.
However, Gillette was “a like-minded company”, he said.
Godfrey said Virgin Blue may “well consider extending it to some of our other planes and having some fun with that”.
The aircraft will fly the Gillette M3Power flag for at least three months and during its travels will visit every major city in Australia.
Also today Virgin Blue announced its passenger numbers had risen 15.2% in the 12 months to the end of January.
The airline carried 1.12 million passengers, compared with 975,252 in the previous corresponding period.
In the year to date from March 31, 2004, passenger numbers were up 29.4 per cent to 10.66 million from same period in 2003/04.
