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Virgin Trains Reframes the Journey With Do It Better
Virgin Trains' 'Do It Better' is a 2016 digital campaign created by TMW in the United Kingdom, in which couples appear to discuss their sex lives but are, in fact, talking about train travel — using innuendo to position Virgin Trains as the superior way to move between Britain's cities.
Published in October 2016 and distributed across AOL's network and via Facebook promoted posts, the campaign comprised two media assets targeted at people living in cities served by Virgin Trains. The strategic intent was straightforward: rather than compete on timetable data or price comparison, the campaign sought to create an emotional and humorous association between the Virgin Trains experience and genuine satisfaction. The double-entendre format gave the brand a tool to cut through the noise of a crowded digital environment without resorting to conventional travel advertising tropes — scenic landscapes, smiling passengers, or arrival-time guarantees.
In the United Kingdom, Virgin Trains operated the West Coast Main Line franchise, connecting London Euston with cities including Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow. This geographic footprint shaped the targeting logic directly: the campaign reached audiences in precisely those urban centres where Virgin Trains competed for intercity passengers. TMW, which held Virgin Trains' digital and CRM account separately from the brand's main above-the-line creative relationship, according to reporting by The Drum, used the digital medium's precision-targeting capability to ensure the campaign landed with the right commuter and leisure audiences. The result is a piece of transport advertising that foregrounds personality over utility — a deliberate creative choice that reflects the broader Virgin brand identity built on irreverence and consumer-facing confidence. Clapboard rates 'Do It Better' at 63 out of 100.
Virgin Trains faced a British rail market showing early signs of demand softening in 2016. According to the Office of Rail and Road, passenger journeys across Great Britain reached approximately 1,731 million in 2016–17, with journey growth slowing to just 0.8 percent — the lowest rate recorded since the 2009–10 economic downturn, as reported by the ORR's data portal. Total passenger-fare income for 2016–17 stood at approximately £9.7 billion, up 1.1 percent year over year, per the ORR, within a total rail-industry income of £19.0 billion. In this environment, winning incremental share of wallet from travellers who might otherwise drive, fly domestically, or use coach services required something more than functional messaging.
The strategic rationale behind 'Do It Better' acknowledges this competitive pressure directly. Virgin Trains' primary intercity competitors on the routes it served included CrossCountry and TransPennine Express for certain corridor journeys, as well as low-cost domestic aviation and National Express coach services competing on price. Rather than engaging in a feature-led comparison, TMW positioned the campaign around the quality of the experience — comfort, speed, and the sense that travelling with Virgin Trains is simply more satisfying. The double-entendre device was not purely comedic; it was a strategic shortcut that allowed the brand to communicate superiority without making explicit product claims that would invite direct rebuttal.
Targeting people in cities served by Virgin Trains, using Facebook's promoted post infrastructure and AOL's network, meant the campaign reached audiences already in the consideration set — urban residents with realistic access to the West Coast Main Line. In the United Kingdom, digital video and social distribution had by 2016 become the dominant channel for brand storytelling in the travel and leisure category, making the channel choice as strategically coherent as the creative concept itself.
Nick Collett directed 'Do It Better' for production company Salt TV. The concept rests entirely on performance and writing: couples speak in the cadences of intimate conversation while every line of dialogue refers, without ambiguity, to train travel. The creative challenge was tonal — the script had to sustain the double-entendre premise long enough to land the brand message without the joke collapsing under its own weight or tipping into gratuitousness.
Creative directors Dave Willis and Luke Clark developed the campaign at TMW, with Willis serving as copywriter and Clark as art director. The script's effectiveness depends on a specific kind of naturalistic delivery — actors who play the scene straight, treating each line as genuine intimate disclosure, so that the audience carries the comedic load by decoding the train-travel subtext. Director of photography Ricky Patel shot the two assets, and sound design was handled by Simon Buck, both of whom contributed to the intimate, contained visual and acoustic environment that makes the premise credible. Agency producer Tracy Woodford and producer Zoe Waller oversaw production, with Clare Franks serving as account director. Media planning and buying was handled by Manning Gottlieb OMD.
The decision to produce exactly two assets is telling. Rather than a broad content series, TMW committed to a tightly defined execution — enough creative variation to allow platform-level testing across Facebook and AOL's network, without diluting the concept through repetition. In the United Kingdom's digital advertising landscape of 2016, this kind of restrained, high-craft digital content was increasingly favoured by brands seeking earned attention alongside paid distribution. The craft here is in the economy of means: the campaign achieves its effect through writing and performance alone, without location photography, visual effects, or production scale.
No verified performance data for 'Do It Better' is publicly available. No campaign-specific sales lift, revenue attribution, or audience reach figures have been disclosed by Virgin Trains, TMW, or Manning Gottlieb OMD, and no entries or wins for this campaign have been located across Cannes Lions, the Effies, One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC.
Structurally, however, the campaign carries several characteristics associated with effective digital brand advertising in the United Kingdom's travel and leisure category. The targeting logic — reaching people in cities already served by Virgin Trains — concentrates media investment on audiences with genuine purchase proximity, reducing waste. The double-entendre format is designed for social shareability: content that provokes a knowing reaction tends to generate organic amplification beyond paid reach, particularly on Facebook, where the campaign ran as promoted posts. The two-asset structure also allows for basic creative testing without fragmenting the concept.
The campaign's greatest structural risk is longevity. Innuendo-driven advertising tends to exhaust its effect quickly once the mechanism is understood, which limits its utility as a long-term brand platform. The October 2016 timing — a period when Virgin Trains was operating under its existing franchise with Krow holding the above-the-line account, before Anomaly's appointment in January 2017, as reported by Campaign Live — positions 'Do It Better' as a discrete digital activation rather than a foundational campaign. As a contained, targeted piece of transport advertising built for digital distribution in the United Kingdom, it demonstrates competent strategic and creative thinking, even in the absence of measurable outcomes.
'Do It Better' is a Virgin Trains digital campaign created by TMW and published in the United Kingdom in October 2016. It features couples appearing to discuss their sex lives while actually describing train travel, using innuendo to position Virgin Trains as the more satisfying way to travel between British cities.
Nick Collett directed 'Do It Better' for production company Salt TV. Creative directors Dave Willis and Luke Clark developed the campaign at TMW, with Willis as copywriter and Clark as art director. Director of photography Ricky Patel shot the two assets, and sound design was handled by Simon Buck.
TMW created 'Do It Better' for Virgin Trains. TMW held Virgin Trains' digital and CRM account, according to reporting by The Drum, separate from the main above-the-line creative account, which was held by Krow until January 2017. Media planning and buying for the campaign was handled by Manning Gottlieb OMD.
'Do It Better' ran across AOL's network and as Facebook promoted posts, targeted at people in cities served by Virgin Trains across the United Kingdom. The campaign comprised two digital media assets, designed to reach urban audiences already within the realistic catchment area of Virgin Trains' West Coast Main Line services.
No verified awards for 'Do It Better' have been located across Cannes Lions, the Effies, One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC. No campaign-specific performance data has been publicly disclosed by Virgin Trains, TMW, or Manning Gottlieb OMD. Clapboard rates the campaign 63 out of 100.
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