You would think that a TV commercial for cell phone ring tones would show what a ring tone sounded like, and that a cell phone would be a necessary prop. Well, not necessarily, says Ari Merkin, executive creative director at Fallon, New York, the agency that recently broke a new campaign for Virgin Mobile USA called "For the Love of Music."
"We felt that was what other brands would do," Merkin adds, which was why he, along with art director Marcus Woolcott and copywriter Adam Alshin, made a conscious decision not to include actual ring tones in the spots—"2 a.m.," "Call Waiting," "Thing," "Shower," and "Avocado"—that comprise the campaign, a promotion for the VOX 8610, which has the ability to play real music, and comes with three free superphonic ring tones.
The ads instead place ordinary-looking young people on city streets in commercial neighborhoods, standing right next to each other, singing a cappella renditions of mundane cell phone conversations. For instance, the spot "Thing" shows a man and a woman belting out their phone conversation while facing the camera, like two people performing on a Broadway stage. Their lyrical exchange goes as follows:
He: Hello.
She: Hey, Baby. Are you at John’s house?
He: Oh, yeah.
She: Did you ever talk to him about that thing?
He: (pause) Chicken sounds delicious.
She: He’s in the room isn’t he?
He. Yeah.
She: Okay, call me later.
He: All right.
The spot closes with two supers: "For the Love of Music," followed by "Get free real music ring tones on the VOX 8610. Now $20 off."
Merkin says Fallon’s idea was to take advantage of the brand’s strong ties to music through Virgin Megastores. "There’s a lot of cool associated with the brand because of the association with Virgin Megastores," he notes. "We wanted to leverage that a bit with these spots and bring a little more of that equity into our offering. Rather than just talking about ring tones and playing the music from the ring tones, we created almost a musical metaphor with the users having conversations. We were able to get the message across through the conversations and the supers. We saw it as a perfect marriage of phone and music."
This aspect of cell phones has been growing, according to Merkin, who says, "Ring tones are a tremendous market right now. It might not last that way forever, but it’s huge right now. One of the ways to keep it fresh is current music. And now there are superphonic ring tones, which are basically real music as your ring tone. It’s still coming out of your phone speaker, but it’s as though you’re hearing it off the radio."
The first spot in the current campaign, "Call Waiting," was directed by the creative team and produced in-house by Fallon, while the next five were turned over to the directing team of Kuntz & Maguire—Tom and Mike, respectively—of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander. (Additional agency credit goes to Brian DiLorenzo, director of broadcast, North America, and producers Erika Best and Tammy Auel.)
"We shot the first spot ourselves," relates Merkin. "We cast a bunch of kids from Juilliard, went out there, pointed a camera at them and shot it the way we thought it should be shot. Luckily, Kuntz & Maguire agreed with us and they seemed to like where we were going with it. Based on their previous work, we thought they would be able to bring a lot to the dialogue. Their sensibilities reassured us that they would be the right guys for the job."
The Right Note
Casting was opened up a bit for the Kuntz & Maguire-directed spots, but the emphasis was still on "real people" who could sing. "It was important to cast these people real," states Merkin. "We wanted it to be surprising when these big beautiful voices came out of their mouths. We looked for people who could sing; we didn’t want actors or model types. These people are more of a reflection of what our users actually are." The five spots were shot in one day in Long Island City, N.Y.
Reaction to the spots has been positive, Merkin says. "People are singing them back to us, which is fun," he shares. "We’ve been very happy with the response. The spots really seemed to break through, especially in a busy atmosphere and a tough demo. They really do cut through nicely. We felt that kids standing there facing the camera would be a nice, powerful, disarming way to stop people."
The "For the Love of Music" campaign is part of a broader concept for Virgin Mobile that Merkin calls "Users Only," designed to separate Virgin from other cell phone companies. Initially, advertising focused on Virgin’s pay-as-you-go pricing plan, which differentiated it from other cell phone providers that require contracts and calling plans.
"There is incredible competition coming in the pay-as-you-go category," Merkin explains. "We needed to offer more. There are benefits to being a Virgin Mobile user that go beyond just the idea of no contract. Some of those are things like a ‘rescue ring,’ where your phone can actually call you to get you out of a bad date."
Merkin acknowledges that the "Users Only" concept bears some resemblance to Apple’s approach in marketing its Macintosh computers. "We’ve been looking to create almost a mass cult out of our users," he says. "There’s a sense of belonging, a sense of membership that comes with the brand."
The campaign is clearly aim-ed at a youth market, with heavy exposure on MTV and kids’ programming. "It’s a teen brand," Merkin says. "There’s no question about that. We target young people. Our mission when we set out a year ago—when I started working on the brand—was to create a very credible teen brand and educate people about pay-as-you-go and what that means. Since the category is [now] so full of pay-as-you-go services, the job of education is essentially done. Now it’s time to hit those user benefits pretty hard."
