DMC has launched a new tongue-in-cheek buzz campaign for Virgin Mobile, poking fun at rival Orange.

We’re planning, seeding and tracking a new Virgin Mobile online buzz marketing campaign called ‘Red Academy’ which takes a friendly poke at the heavily criticised Orange ‘Learn’ advertising campaign.

The tongue-in-cheek Red Academy campaign features a digital film clip called ‘Friends’ created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R. The film parodies the Orange Learn campaign and its patronising training theme by introducing viewers to the Virgin Mobile ‘Red Academy’ where simplicity and genius merge with a childlike Machiavellian character called Damian indoctrinating naive trainees. Lessons such as ‘80% of people, use 10% of their friends’ drive home the message that people should forget phone functions and simply phone friends.

The campaign is being seeded as advertainment content via DMC’s online influencer network, as well as being featured on marketing industry and lifestyle web sites.

James Kydd, brand director for Virgin Mobile, said:

The Flash-It promotion has been running for several months and is proving such a success that we’ve decided to give it further support. We’re using DMC’s online viral marketing expertise again to widen awareness of the promotion with this booster viral campaign targeted at the culture-driving, technology-savvy online audience.

Big brands can sometimes take themselves too seriously and - as in the case of Orange - end up with marketing initiatives that are somewhat wide of the mark. We’re simply having a bit of fun and using DMC’s online buzz marketing expertise to share the joke with peers and customers.

Virgin Mobile is using web-exclusive creative material and our seeding expertise to maximise the buzz surrounding the campaign. Our online film tracking system will also provide real-time accountability of the film’s views and hotlinks in order to quantify the campaign’s impact.

You can check out the Angry and Pub Quiz and Friends clips here