Virgin Atlantic was named travel brand of the decade by industry marketing body Cimitg at its annual awards ceremony in London last night.
The carrier beat lowcost airline easyJet into second place and Royal Caribbean International into third to claim the accolade. The winner was chosen by a panel of judges including Stephen Cheliotis, director and chief executive of the The Centre for Brand Analysis.
He was recruited to help with the judging after speaking at last year’s Institute of Travel and Tourism annual overseas conference in Benidorm. The shortlist of five brands considered for the award also included cross-channel train operator Eurostar and hotels review website TripAdvisor.
Judges said Virgin Atlantic was “chosen for its exceptional reputation amongst consumers, for their overall brand strength, distinctive cheeky and fun personality and innovative and reliable product offering”.
Other big winners on the night in the campaigns category included Virgin Holidays for its Rockstar Service television advertising which also scooped the best use of direct marketing (mail) award.
Brittany Ferries took home the integrated campaign of the year award for its campaign that promoted ferry travel to Spain as an alternative to flying during last year’s Icelandic ash cloud crisis.
Another big winner looking to exploit another of the problems parts of the travel industry endured last year was regional carrier Bmi for its BA Strike campaign devised by M&C Saatchi.
This campaign won the advertising campaign of the year for media spend over £250,000 and the best press consumer advertisement/campaign and best business advertisement/campaign.
Other notable winners included Propellernet and Pitchup.com, both winners in Travel Weekly sister publication Travolution’s awards last September, who won in the best use of SEO and best domestic strategic campaign respectively.
Best trade campaign was Royal Caribbean’s WOW campaign, developed by Travel Weekly and AMS Media and designed by Positive Thinking that ran exclusively with Travel Weekly last year. It featured an innovative ‘scratch and win’ panel on a cover wrap.