The Direct Mail resulted in 2,111 bookings. Most of the recipients have clicked on-line and therefore form part of the digital results – an outstanding ROI of 400:1, leading the client to hail the work as the ‘best ever’.

“I want the world” is the brand rallying cry for Virgin Holidays, established by the Charlotte Church TV ads. The next step was to enhance the brand idea through direct marketing. This had to be a hard-working piece to drive sales – without forgetting to be entertaining. And encourage a healthy diva-like nature.

With Virgin Holidays, we’ve got our priorities straight; it’s all about what our customer wants.When we encourage our customers’ to ask for the world, we mean it. We mail them our great value for money prices; show them destinations and different ways to see it. And then, we ask them what more could they want? On a huge reply card, we offer over 60 options, everything from wanting a Florida brochure to wanting to act like a kid.

Flipping the usual DM conventions around, we turned the response device into the central idea. We wanted customers to get in touch with their inner diva and “Ask for the world”. To do this we adopted an unconventional and very Virgin-like approach. In most DM packs the reply card is usually tagged on to the end of the brochure. We tagged our brochure on to our reply card. We featured a whole host of possible demands on the reply card ranging from practical stuff like commission-free currency through to more emotive, fun demands such as “to wear white socks with open-toed sandals”, demonstrating Virgin Holidays’ cheeky personality.