At the start of 2020, Virgin Money unveiled a new brand proposition, ‘Say Hello to Brighter Money’, and made music central to reinvigorating the brand experience. Our carefully thought out sponsorship strategy, including new sponsorships with The O2 and the SSE Hydro, was disrupted when Covid-19 hit. Both venues closed, causing untold hardship for the live music industry, also leaving our customer engagement programmes in jeopardy. We sensed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring our brand ambitions to life with a pioneering project that would capture attention on a global scale and create rewarding experiences for our customers and the British public.
With our partners at SSD Concerts, the world’s first socially distanced music venue – the Virgin Money Unity Arena – was born: inviting fans to watch incredible live entertainment from private viewing areas. The venue defied all expectations and helped us reinvigorate the brand through music.
For a bank to be tweeted about by the Irish Taoiseach, talked about by Trevor Noah, Dwayne Wade, Piers Morgan and TikTok influencers, make headlines in LADbible, Rolling Stone and NME and become part of viral culture is extremely rare.
Virgin Money organically became part of a sustained cultural conversation creating 616m social impressions, generated 2,677 news hits, and increased positive brand sentiment by 21% in just one month. The Virgin Money Unity Arena is an unforgettable music sponsorship that offered joy and hope for artists, fans and event producers, and firmed Virgin Money up in the public eye as a bank with a difference.
