Virgin Australia has showed off its new brand campaign over the weekend, screening it to four million Australians at the AFL grand final.

The new brand platform, called ‘Here’s to looking up’, is the first one Virgin has created with its creative agency, DDB Sydney, and will roll out across digital, outdoor, magazines, print, social media and radio.

“We couldn’t find the right word to embody our belief, so in true Virgin Australia style, we created a word that we call ‘Uptimism’,” Virgin Australia chief marketing officer Inese Kingsmill told B&T.

The ariline believes Uptimism taps into the ‘can do’ attitude inherent in its staff and flyers.

“Brands that connect emotionally are the most powerful brands in the world,” Kinsmill explained.

“Our competitor has done a consistenly good job of being an emotive brand, and people know that they stand for coming home, and everyone likes that.

“But, there’s a lot of white space in the market and the Virgin brand naturally lends itself to the energy and possibility of the take-off.

Kingsmill said the focus of the last 12 months has been to establish Virgin’s “true north”.

“We are a brand who takes an optimistic point of view. We’re not saying that everything is always perfect in our world,” she said.

“We fundamentally believe that when we adopt that positive mindset that we have a better chance of better outcomes happening.

“I am most excited about how I hope this will make our own people feel – we’ve been a little quiet in market over the couple of years, and I get the sense that the time is right and our own people are feeling like they want to be represented and to take a stage in some way.”

DDB Sydney chief creative officer Ben Welsch said the campaign could’ve worked for only one aviation brand – Virgin.

“You come up with an idea perfect for one brand and almost one brand alone,” he said.

“The Virgin brand is borne from Uptimism, and its full of energy and excited about what lies ahead. Taking off is the moment you get excited.

“I know people are going to fall in love again – if they’re ambivalent about Virgin, they won’t be anymore.”