Since January has always been a popular time for people to join health clubs, Virgin Active wanted to promote their new clubs, and show that they offer more than their competitors. Since Virgin had never used radio creative solutions before, they struck a partnership with Bauer Media in order to utilise the capabilities of radio to fulfil their objectives.

Virgin Active wanted to create a fully integrated campaign that would heighten brand awareness and attract people to join its new clubs during the month of January. The campaign aimed to show that Virgin Active's clubs offer more than their competitors and demonstrate Virgin's fun, innovative and challenging brand behaviour.

Using Virgin Active's 5 key city hotspots (London - KISS, Manchester - Key 103, Edinburgh - Forth, Glasgow - Clyde, Birmingham - Kerrang!), we enrolled a Bauer station presenter to act as the Virgin Active brand ambassador and we recorded their journeys of getting fit in 2012 through online, on air and via social media over a 6 week period. This was a totally integrated campaign with all the elements working closely together.

Bauer Media's idea was so strong and delivered on every objective that they received a 100% share of the radio creative solutions budget and radio spend increased by 75%. VA's twitter followers increased its 'likes' by 19% over the period. Virgin Active had never used radio creative solutions before and in 2011 were light radio spenders. This successful campaign showed them what they had been missing.

The activity truly integrated Virgin Active into the editorial content of the stations and the station presenters managed to communicate the VA objective of being 'fun, innovative and challenging." This was a media first to get presenters actually physically involved with getting fit with a fitness club.