Virgin Media interrupts ad breaks
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Virgin Media is taking over the ad breaks during ITV1’s coverage of The Brits tonight (21 February) to highlight the benefits of watching TV online using its “super fast” broadband.
The broadband provider will “interrupt” ads from other advertisers including Yeo Valley and Citroen, with the online buffering wheel commonly seen when viewers watch TV online using slow internet connections.
Viewers will see the first few seconds of the Yeo Valley or Citroen ad, which will then freeze and be replaced by the buffering wheel while Virgin Media asks viewers why they put up with buffering online when they would not accept it on TV.
Jeff Dodds, executive director of brand and marketing communications at Virgin Media, says: “The unexpected interruption to primetime TV brings home the message that viewers shouldn’t settle for buffering on TV or online. More and more people are watching content online, from BBC iPlayer to LoveFilm and YouTube, and they deserve a great viewing experience every time.”
Virgin Media is currently doubling the broadband speeds of more than four million of its customers’ homes and hopes to boost its top speed to 120MB in line with its aim to be the fastest broadband provider in the UK.
It is currently running an ad campaign featuring sprinter Usain Bolt masquerading as Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson to promote its broadband speeds.
Readers' comments (6)
Anonymous | Wed, 22 Feb 2012 8:36 am
Ironically, I'm with Virgin - and frequently have to tolerate buffering!
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Anonymous | Wed, 22 Feb 2012 9:47 am
im also with virgin....and frequently dont have to tolerate buffering
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Mark (ISPreview) | Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:57 pm
I think it's fair to say that no ISP, not even Virgin Media, is completely immune to the problem that they're advertising against. Virgin's 10Mbps packages can be affected by heavy traffic management that would cause similar problems and their ADSL based Virgin National (Virgin.net) services are arguably even more vulnerable.
Mark
ISPreview.co.uk Editor
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Anonymous | Wed, 22 Feb 2012 1:12 pm
I'm also with Virgin, and as a marketing student recognise this could be a dangerous move as most of us in the student area have a hopeless internet connection!
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Anonymous | Wed, 22 Feb 2012 2:02 pm
I live in an area full of students in Bath and also with Virgin Media on the 30Mbps package. I can safely say that i never have an issue with their internet service.
We use two tablets, two teenage children, who use laptops and PS3. I can't fault the service I receive, always performing close to the 30mbps I pay for.
I did use their self help to tweak the PC so it performs to optimum performance with the router.
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Anonymous | Sat, 3 Mar 2012 10:30 pm
My Virgin media broadband (fibre) is always buffering, even sites like youtube, so find this advert misleading.
VM admit its overutilsation on their UBR but let the problem go on for 6 months at a time before they fix it.
Reading recent Ofcom reports, VM is the worst for latency and packetloss, thus the worst for streaming video and playing latency reliant games.
I am very tempted to make a complaint to advertising standards over the advert.
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