As you would expect from consumer champion Virgin Trains, they’ve chosen to surprise and delight with their latest campaign by communicating value with bright vivid carnival games imagery.

‘Beat the System’ focuses on educating customers (in a typically Virgin way) about the various tools available to get a cheaper train ticket.

Created by Elvis in conjunction with Dare, it shows the advantages of using the money-saving tools at www.virgintrains.com/tickets-offers and is brought to life through the creative theme of traditional fairground games. There’s a knack to winning fairground games, and there’s a knack to getting cheaper train tickets. By dramatising the benefits of using their value tools (making the games easier to win), Virgin Trains is giving the advantage back to the consumer.

‘Beat the System’ is being rolled out across outdoor, press, online and email, as well as leveraging social media.

A new Facebook app developed by Elvis showcases these money-saving tools in the guise of the well-known carnival ‘grabber’ game, with a Virgin Trains teddy up for grabs. Play without the tools and it’s harder to win; the more tools you employ, the better your chances of winning. A fun metaphor for the dry fact that the more money-saving tools employed when booking, the greater the chances of getting a cheaper ticket.

Ben Clapp, Elvis Creative Director says, “Very few agencies are lucky enough to be given such a wide remit on such a well respected brand. Potentially a value campaign can be seen as dry and functional, we wanted to turn this on its head and fill it with fun.’

Annerie Hughes, Head of Marketing, Virgin Trains said: “The new ‘Beat The System’ campaign encapsulates our vision of educating customers on how find the best ticket for them, it demystifies the complicated booking systems with clear direction to the best ways of saving. We’re very proud to have created an exciting new interactive Facebook app, which I’m sure, will help inform people about our money-saving tools as well as drive further awareness of the brand.”

The most recent integrated campaign for Virgin Trains created by Elvis and Dare was their ‘most successful campaign ever’ in terms of ROI. ‘Don’t Go Zombie... Go Virgin Trains’ allowed consumers to play out the brand proposition through the world-first Google Street View game.