VIRGIN TRAINS
TOILET ROLE OF A LIFETIME
BRIEF
We should start by explaining. Virgin Trains have ‘talking toilets’ on board. Enter the onboard loo and you’ll be greeted by a (moderately passive aggressive) recorded message, in cut-glass RP. And, while the loquacious loos are great for the visually impaired and kids seemingly love them, they do come in for a fair bit of a criticism on social media.
Our brief: flush the talking toilet’s narrator.
IDEA
[Emotive case study film begins…]
“So, we thought, what if we democratised the Virgin Talking Toilets?”
Well, we actually thought, let’s replace that voice with something less grating. What if we just used the normal accents of normal people from the normal places that our trains pass through?
And who should spearhead such a campaign?
We had a long list of one.
Obviously, it had to be Dean ‘Robbie from EastEnders’ Gaffney.
“Yes, this is his agent. Yes, he’s available.”
We scripted and shot a hilarious promo featuring Gaffers attempting to audition for the Voice Of The Virgin Trains Talking Toilet, to spearhead a national search to find new voice for Virgin’s Talking Toilets.
RESULTS
We scripted and shot a hilarious promo featuring Gaffers attempting to audition for the Voice Of The Virgin Trains Talking Toilet, to spearhead a national search to find new voice for Virgin’s Talking Toilets.
The campaign raked in the cov. Metro. Sun. Mail Online. Star. Express. Etc. Etc. Our favourite piece was landing Dean 20 minute segments on Nick Grimshaw’s BBC1 afternoon show, two days in a row.
Far more importantly however, the campaign raked in the engagement.
In total we got over FIVE THOUSAND (!) submissions to be the new voice of Virgin Toilets with five ultimately chosen and recorded to be new voices of the loos.
People are weird.