Typo means intern gives away one billion Velocity Points in new work via CHE Proximity, Sydney
CB Exclusive – When brands make a blunder, Australians love to capitalise. And that’s exactly what Velocity Frequent Flyer, the multi-award winning loyalty program of Virgin Australia, wants everyone to do by ‘accidentally’ giving away a billion Points.
The new campaign via CHE Proximity, Sydney, for its twice-yearly credit card transfer bonus looks a little different. This time, a blunder by ‘Tim the intern’ has forced Velocity to commit to giving away one billion Points instead of the originally ‘signed off’ one million.
Says Dean Chadwick, chief marketing officer, Velocity: “We wanted to reframe our traditional 15 per cent bonus campaign and inject some humour to resonate with our members. Australians don’t often know that they can easily move their credit card rewards points to Velocity to go on great holidays with family and friends.”
In the early hours of Monday morning, Velocity members were ‘accidentally’ sent an email offering them a share of one billion bonus Velocity Points if they transferred their points over from their bank credit card. By midday, Velocity admitted their mistake and agreed to honour the extra 999 million Points.
This is the launch phase of a month-long campaign that will play out like a mini-series. The campaign consists of over 40 different videos that document the impact of giving away that many Points. The story will be sequenced over the month.
Print, social, digital, airport lounges and Virgin Australia inflight announcements will be used to amplify the campaign over the month. Velocity’s marketing team will also search for a new intern who is ‘good with numbers’ via LinkedIn.
Says Ant White, ECD, CHE Proximity: “We were asked to enter into unchartered territory for Velocity with this campaign and do something unique for 
the brand. Blaming the intern felt like a fun and human way to do it – let’s face it, we’ve all been that guy or girl. But instead of approaching it like a bunch of ads, we created a content series that plays out on screens and in the real world for one month.
“Everything we did for this campaign had to be crafted and feel 
authentic to the Velocity brand and its ties with Virgin Australia. From the first email, to the in-flight announcement, to the website experience and even the media placements, it was a huge team effort.”
All content will ultimately direct consumers to claim their share using a specially built Points calculator that lets them evaluate how many 
points they will benefit from, thanks to Tim the intern.
To claim a share of the one billion Points, members can move their credit, charge or flybuys card points over to Velocity before May 31st.
Velocity Frequent Flyer
CEO: Karl Schuster
CMO: Dean Chadwick
Head of Customer Loyalty Marketing: Steve Baird
Marketing Specialist – Brand: Renee Phillips
Marketing Advisor: Annabel Brusasco
Partnerships Manager, Financial Services: Sam Fleming
CHE Proximity
Executive Creative Director: Ant White
Group Creative Director: Brian Jefferson
Creative Team: Ashley Wilding & Daniel Davison
Managing Director: David Halter
Group Account Director: Mia Matulic
Senior Account Director: Marianne Apolinario
Senior Account Manager: Kat Lear & Adam Kotecki
Account Executive: Caitlin Adler
Senior TV Producer: Jenny Livingston
AEM Producer: Blaise Palmer
Director, Experience: Elizabeth Geor
Data & CX Strategy: CHE Proximity & Torque Data
Media: CHE Proximity
Technology: CHE Proximity, Louder Digital & Adobe
Production Company: Goodoil Films
Director: Abe Forsythe
Executive Producer: Sam Long
Producer: Llew Griffiths
28 Comments
The first one makes sense. The rest are going to be very confusing to a lot of people. Maybe leave the TV to Clems and stick to the emails, they look nice.
Because what we need, in this age of “fake news”, is more advertising that masquerades as truth. You’re also normalising blaming company mistakes on junior staff. While in this case the fake mistake is honoured, most of the time the intern (who is most likely paid extremely poorly or not at all) is the scapegoat and loses their job, with the execs having no accountability. Copious examples of this on the blog and other trade rags in the past.
Shame on you. Think this is clever? You’re part of the problem.
You are wrong. This is the best ad campaign of all time and you have to chill out.
p.s. you are part of the problem. grow a pair.
Oh god. An integrated email campaign
Sorry to all the above., but I liked it.
Shut the fuck up you lot.
These are great.
Velocity have been talking up how awesome this campaign is going to be for the last few months. It was going to create waves, get everyone talking, be huge.
Turns out you got sold a pup.
CHE need to get back to what they do best and leave ideas to others.
This is mint!
I like it. Be better on film or whatever as well, but it is fun.
It’s not exactly an award winning idea but it’s funny and will work. The people who actually matter (consumers) will love it.
I hear hurt in your words. Are you ok?
Sounds like you might not have a job anymore?
Good job guys. This is funny.
I love it!
Seem a little overacted and poorly written in my books but let’s say punters thought they were funny.
Do you think people will understand half of these? I get the intern one, I get the intern walking the boss through how to work the thing. I don’t get any of the others, not sure your consumers will either.
Simple. Solid.
This is basically a bad viral marketing tactic from 2005.
Be better.
Relax CHEP. If you’ve convinced yourselves and your client that this a great campaign then good luck to you.
Don’t post mediocre work on the blog and expect to get a heap of praise for it though.
It’s amusing and will make people laugh, I had a good chuckle at them.
This industry is full of bitter judgemental d*cks. How about you show some of your amazing work when you post a long whining comment. Stop hiding behind your witty names and snide comments.
Nice, funny work. Well done!
Oh god these are bad
Reading the comments, I didn’t expect to laugh as much the spots made me laugh. Some more than others, but that’s to be expected I guess.
Lighten up people, it’s an entertaining bunch of ads.
Hahaha, surely taking the piss?
Clems Melb, yeah. But definitely not Clems Syd.
Forever in their shadow.
Let’s face it, we’re all just salty because we aren’t talented enough to be authors or film directors. In the meantime, let’s vent our frustration out in this comment section like we always do.
how many times does this concept need to be regurgitated before we all realise it’s crap?
look, i found one with a 2 second google search. there must be thousands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOvvYV7J198
Perhaps these billion points are actually only *worth* one million points?
Anyway, these ads do the job, and they’re somewhat amusing.
Not a new idea, but the best execution of it I’ve seen. Nice one!
Sharp. Well cast and directed.
I love it. Think its a killer idea and I think well directed, written and cast. Its pretty rare I will see one ad and then actually go and watch a whole bunch of them for fun and I did with this. Well done to everyone. You haters are such losers. I can’t see how you can see bad in this. Just shows CB attracts these haters, I thought it was just on my work!