Breaking Record Speeds with Virgin Media's Speed Demons

Client: Virgin Media O2

The industry competition for broadband services is fierce, which consequently impacted the public’s perception of Virgin Media’s (VM) speed leadership. We had to create an activation that brought VM’s unrivalled broadband speed back to the forefront as part of the wider ATL campaign, ‘We’re better, connected’. Ideally, linking to VM’s latest creative featuring a girl who learnt to skateboard through the power of VM’s fast broadband.

And so, the Speed Demons were born. A team of professional skateboarders were hand-picked to break the new team downhill Guinness World Record (GWR). To generate buzz, we ran a campaign on VM’s channels giving their customers a chance to be part of the record-breaking event. With the concept and customers secured, we designed an interactive track with no existing infrastructure, a Grand Prix inspired hospitality hub, sourced incredible hosts and a curated winning atmosphere. We worked with Adam&Eve DDB to coordinate drones and cameras to capture not only the GWR, but VM’s next TV creative, with an advertising break takeover during Channel 4's highlights of the Italian Grand Prix - the pressure was on! The Speed Demons set the record with a downhill speed of 52.788mph. We generated over 3,000 competition entries, over 2m video views on social media, resulting in 32 pieces of earnt editorial coverage (25 of which were regional) and over 1.6m views of the TV advert. The numbers speak for themselves. There’s no doubt about the industry leaders in speed now.