News 2003
Thumbs Up to Virgin Mobile as it Launches Text Price War
30/04/2003
Virgin Mobile, the UK’s fastest growing mobile network, will tomorrow launch a new tariff of just 3p per text message, when sent from one Virgin Mobile customer to another within the UK. The move is likely to spark a price war in the mobile telecommunications industry, by hugely undercutting many of its rivals’ tariffs and by creating a strong point of difference for both existing and new customers. The aggressive price cuts will be supported by the biggest ever advertising campaign in the company’s history.
The 3p text tariff is the first change that Virgin Mobile has made to its simple, flat rate pay structure since it launched three years ago. There is no line rental, no contract to sign and one simple tariff, with standard calls* charged at 15p per minute for the first five minutes of use each day, and then 5p per minute after that and voicemail retrieval is free. Virgin Mobile also offers a ‘Big Bonus’ to any registered customer spending Ł30 or more in a month – they get 10% of their monthly spend as an airtime credit the following month. Customers can ‘pay any way they want’ – by topping up with credit or debit card, with top-up vouchers, by E Top Up or by paying monthly with direct debit.
According to Mobile Data Association statistics, nearly 55 million text messages are sent each day in the UK, so Virgin Mobile anticipates that its 3p text tariff will be a powerful incentive for its 2.6 million customers’ family and friends to join the network and benefit from the outstanding low rate.
Virgin Mobile’s Sir Richard Branson said: “Virgin is well known for shaking up the market place, and with this aggressive price cut, we aim to do just that again. Texting is phenomenally popular with the young and young at heart, with whom Virgin is already a well-loved brand. We want to reward these customers, and their family and friends, for their support, which has made Virgin Mobile the number one network for texters in the UK.”
The activity will be supported by a Ł5 million campaign on cinema, TV, radio and press – Virgin Mobile’s largest ever through the line campaign. The TV ad launches on 2nd May and hopes are high that it will be even more popular than its cult ‘Wyclef’ ads. The tongue in cheek ad is set in an old Eastern European hospital where patients are literally bored out of their minds. The ads, which are in 60”, 30” and 10” formats, show listless patients using their thumbs to cause mischief and wreak havoc on their fellow patients and nurses – repeatedly pressing a light switch on and off, shaving another patient’s bushy eyebrows, stapling a nurse’s skirt to a desk and pulling her bra strap from behind – all crucially using their thumbs. The ad closes with the strap line “The Devil Makes Work for Idle Thumbs. Keep Yours Busy. Text Another Virgin Mobile For Only 3p”.
*Calls to landlines and other Virgin Mobile phones
