Virgin Blue embarks on brand overhaul

[munitalP]

Remarkable how quickly something like that can get fixed.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

 

[LiamR]

Well, according to Virgin's Facebook page, YH-YFC is/was in the paintshop!

Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More

 

[2353]

Well, according to Virgin's Facebook page, YH-YFC is/was in the paintshop!

One of the Comments - "don't forget the My Family stickers . . ." LOL!

 

[LiamR]

One of the Comments - don't forget the "My Family stickers . . ." LOL!

Ahahha, classic!

 

[lovestotravel]

So it finally happens tomorrow.... I wonder if implementation dates will be mention or will it be another "wait and see" approach...................

To recap:

http://www.virginaustralia.com.au/ - Taken from old owner and now registered with Virgin Enterprises

Virgin Australia logo submitted to Gov.

Virgin Australia showing as domestic flights "operated by" on the DJ website

http://www.virginaustralia.com.au now - Was loading to a "Server error" page but now loading to a blank page.....

Pretty much a given Virgin Australia will be used for domestic and the rest is wait and see.

 

[docjames]

Hover over the V Australia logo at the bottom of the page here:

Virgin Atlantic Airways - Popup

 

[Boof1]

Hover over the V Australia logo at the bottom of the page here:

Virgin Atlantic Airways - Popup

What happens?? I'm not getting anything other than the link to V Australia's website.

 

[AaronBradford]

What happens?? I'm not getting anything other than the link to V Australia's website.

I only get this on Internet Explorer ... don't know how long it's been like that and Virgin Blue's logo is still saying Virgin Blue, so it could be just a typo or miscommunication.

Edit: To clarify, this only shows when hovering over V Australia, not Virgin Blue.

 

[LiamR]

Hover over the V Australia logo at the bottom of the page here:

Virgin Atlantic Airways - Popup

Big deal, thats been there for ages. Its for V Australia.

V Australia = Virgin Australia according to that website.

Virgin Blue still says Virgin Blue.

Looking forward to the big news tommorow.....

 

[LiamR]

*Puts IT Guy cap on*

Sooo. I looked into the Domain name.

Its currently associated to the IP Address 123.200.150.148 , this is located in Brisbane.

Currently, Virginblue.com.au is associated to 203.35.229.201, which is located in at the same spot in Brisbane.

They are hosted by different people, but cross at the same exchange. Coincidence? I think not.

That’s about 90 seconds of work that anyone could do... Instead of looking into it further, I might just wait until tomorrow.

 

[Misha]

*Puts IT Guy cap on*

Sooo. I looked into the Domain name.

Its currently associated to the IP Address 123.200.150.148 , this is located in Brisbane.

Currently, Virginblue.com.au is associated to 203.35.229.201, which is located in at the same spot in Brisbane.

They are hosted by different people, but cross at the same exchange. Coincidence? I think not.

That’s about 90 seconds of work that anyone could do... Instead of looking into it further, I might just wait until tomorrow.

The only thing IP means to me is that you are advising me you are currently in the process of relieving your bladder :shock:

As I am not IT savvy - I will wait till tomorrow - though we all think we know it already don't we. Almost hope we are wrong as that would be a nice little surprise!

Oh well... it came around fast enough...

 

[stuartfaz]

The red jets are dead, welcome Virgin Australia.

Source: Jetspotter.com • View topic - Sydney movements 2011

New livery is nice and understated, but I'll definitely miss the red jets flying around.

 

[stuartfaz]

New slogan is "Now you're flying", to replace the oft-neglected "Now there's an idea".

via @winglets747 on twitter, New Virgin Australia slogan: "Now you're flying" on Twitpic.

You can follow the events of the day on Twitter, using the hashtag #newvirgin.

 

[Nigelinoz]

New livery is nice and understated, but I'll definitely miss the red jets flying around.

I think you'll have plenty of time to take some pictures of the red ones.:mrgreen:
Cheers
N'oz

 

[777]

Fact v. Speculaiton

If anyone can remember back to the dark old days when Virgin Australia was called Virgin Blue -- was it a week ago yet? There were a series of extremely confident assertions from thewhinchester to the company reps on this forum around what was rumour and what was fact about the coming rebranding.

Picking a fight with someone who clearly has access to information you don't is a fraught business. At the time i thought it would be interesting - given the that the facts would be on the table soon enough - to revisit the article and and see just how much of it was accurate and how much would prove to be speculation.

So, if you want to read the original article: Photo: Virgin Australia logo revealed - Wings Down Under

Which some enough here were confident enough to declare "gospel truth":

Know that blog well, and the journalist in question from freq. online discussions. You can take Will's article, and the information within as gospel truth... I'll be catching up with him this week as he's back in town, will let him know how untrusting you are of his information

When the Virgin Blue company rep suggested that "Gospel truth" and rumour were different than "news" s/he got this response for their trouble:

No, I'm pretty sure I meant news - specially as you're operating under the confusion/dillusion that a) unless the company has announced it then it's just rumour, and b) that a credible aviation journalist can't possibly be correct specially as it's something you've yet to announce.

I'd give published stories from a credible journalist with a significant body of expeirence on the subject area in question far more creedence than the sole word of a company and their rep.

Further, I'd suggest you go back and read your companies policies on community engagement and social media use. As a professional practicioner, I'd suggest that comments you think are tongue in cheek would be getting dangerously close to breaches.

I would strongly advise my clients against any postings such as those made by you - as they could be easily be mistaken for a personal attack coming from the company, and further fail to show due respect to the information, facts, opinions and views expressed by those you are engaging with - both of which aren't a good look in public, specially in a medium which was is seen cannot be unseen.

Struck me as a hyper confident spray given the relative availability of information, but given that the medium "cannot be unseen" i thought i'd check the "rumour" against the "news":

The story said:
* Virgin Enterprises has applied for use of a Virgin Australia logo [Correct]
* That the logo was the new Virgin logo [Correct]
* Virgin Australia will be the brand for domestic operations [Correct] while Pacific Blue [Wrong], and possibly Polynesian Blue [Wrong], will be folded into the V Australia brand [Wrong]
* For what it's worth the post also linked to several pieces of speculative design that also turned out to be wide of the mark.

I'm not criticising Will Horton and Wings Down Under. As i said at the time the Wings Down Under piece it contained one obvious fact (the trademark filing) that was a genuine scoop. It also included several layers of conjecture, speculation and rumour that weren't explicitly labelled as such but seemed pretty obviously so.

Turns out they were wrong. Now we know.

 

[david-au-2000]

As I said at the time the only thing we knew for sure was the trademark they had applied for. That of course told us DJ's new name would be 'Virgin Australia' but of course DJ Dave was not going to come out on a forum and say 'yes that's the new name' one week ahead of the big media launch, press conference etc, Richard Branson would have had him sacked!

So sure everyone figured it would be Virgin Australia but that still was not 100 percent confirmed until midnight when some new web sites ran the story, they must have been under an 'embargo'.

And as it turns out as soon as we saw the first photos of the new aircraft at CHC and KL we knew the livery was different to that logo. BUT the trademark logo did turn out to be correct, it just was not the livery we saw on the tail and of course the trademark was in black-and-white.

What about the colours? A few sites made guesses the only one I saw that got it right was Virgin Australia's new logo: options & analysis of Virgin Blue, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and other Virgin airlines - Flights | hotels | frequent flyer | business class - Australian Business Traveller, they had one with the exact same 'virgin red' tail and silver writing, but they had a few design variations so they were bound to get one of them right!

I think the name surprised everyone because not everyone expected 'Virgin Australia' could be used internationally but again some sites did say this was likely as long as SQ agreed.

The bottom line is that apart from DJ Dave nobody here or anywhere else knew anything about the new 'Virgin Australia' name for certain, 100 percent fact, and everything else was either speculation or being well-informed or just a good guess!

I do agree that Winchester's 'spray' against DJ Dave was out of line and did not show a understanding of this, and to be honest for someone who is a 'social media professional' it was not a very good look to give a spray like that in a public forum, isn't that what social media professionals are not supposed to do?

I think its great that we have people like DJ Dave here, he is much more active and 'useful' than Red Roo and actually participates in the community as much as he can within reason.

 

[oz_mark]

As I said at the time the only thing we knew for sure was the trademark they had applied for.

I think I made a comment along a similar line

I think the name surprised everyone because not everyone expected 'Virgin Australia' could be used internationally but again some sites did say this was likely as long as SQ agreed.

The bottom line is that apart from DJ Dave nobody here or anywhere else knew anything about the new 'Virgin Australia' name for certain, 100 percent fact, and everything else was either speculation or being well-informed or just a good guess!

From my reading, getting approval to use Virgin Australia internationally came quite late in the piece. While Virgin Australia was the domestic brand, I suspect that V Australia was the contingency plan right up until the last minute. News reported:

"As always also, the final agreements were signed in the air on the way down to Australia," Sir Richard said."So I had to look at my BlackBerry to make sure that we did have Virgin Australia sorted."

Rebranded Virgin prepares for a tough battle | News.com.au