The Virgin group have created an initiative to mobilise staff and suppliers to bring about a change in the way businesses and the social sector work as partners. Start has created a category-breaking advertising and identity campaign for the launch of the Virgin Unite charity programme.

 

The campaign theme is ‘Spend time with your better side,’ demonstrating Virgin’s philosophy of working hard but playing hard too, focusing on time as the new ‘currency.’ The aim is to get people to donate their time to help the 12 charities chosen by Virgin group staff.

 

This is a guilt-free charity campaign, led by a series of seven posters that celebrate real life, each balancing one of the seven ‘sins’ with an equally enjoyable good deed, e.g. sloth meets spirit, lust meets love, and pride meets proud. Conventional charity concepts have been challenged: worthy becomes cool; serious becomes fun; politically correct becomes outrageous; and most importantly, asking for money becomes demanding time.

 

Mark Smith, Creative Director at Start Creative, said, “In the true Virgin spirit, we wanted to create something different; something that would challenge the traditional approach in the charity sector. We didn’t want to engage people on a guilt level. Virgin Unite is about having fun - It’s about celebrating the reality of how people live their lives, whilst encouraging them to donate time to Unite Partners.”

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