14,588 Facebook users ‘liked’ the campaign, which was limited to 3 weeks to keep excitement up. 373 people applied to express a ’30 sec LOVE’ message. Online ticket sales increased by 130% period to period, reversing the sharp decline in sales after the tragic earthquake.

And the two messages givers? The first, a remarried woman, sent her new husband a message of appreciation, and subsequently spent her first wedding anniversary with her husband and her daughter in London. And the second, a young man, proposed to his girlfriend through his message and will be wed in June 2012.

We built a Facebook page to solicit applications to deliver ‘30 sec LOVE’ messages, and linked it to the VAA website and online sales. A Facebook banner ad and PR articles on over 100 websites drove Facebook users to our page, which included an online game to increase ‘stickiness.’ We selected the two most promising ‘30 sec LOVE’ applicants, and flew them to London. Their messages, like Facebook, needed to be natural and from the heart, so we assisted them to cope with a commercial production without interfering with their individual expression. The production crew met the candidates in Japan and flew with them to London to help them to feel at ease in a foreign setting.

Reactions to the messages were recorded at a public viewing of the Olympic Games Asian Football Qualifiers Final, executed without formal set up to preserve the element of surprise.

Building on the insights that people were rediscovering the importance of interpersonal bonds and especially love after the Great East Japan Earthquake (sales of engagement rings and wedding bookings were sharply up) and that the Royal Wedding reinforced this trend, we sought to use social media supported by broadcast media to include Virgin Atlantic Airways in the consumer dialogue that was going on. We saw London as a symbolic focal point of romantic love, and set out to make Virgin Atlantic Airways a connector between not only Tokyo and London, but also between hearts. We sought applications through Facebook, and flew two selected LOVE messengers halfway across the world to deliver their messages from the site of the Royal Wedding. The surprise reveals of their ’30 sec LOVE’ messages during a televised event that we knew would receive national attention was the climax of the campaign.