Virgin is celebrating 25 years in business this year by launching a new advertising campaign. The advert is a nostalgic look back at 1984 with brick-like mobile phones, yuppies, a Rubik’s Cube, the Wimpy burger chain and headlines about the miners’ strike.

The TV ad was created by ad agency RKCR ahead of Virgin’s 25th birthday in June. It shows a glamorous red-suited cabin crew and the pilot walking through a dreary and colourless airport.

Representing the first Virgin Atlantic crew on the inaugural flight to New York in 1984, they walk past 1980s icons to the soundtrack of Frankie Goes to Hollywood classic Relax.

What a fantastic ad! Bouncy, cheerful and pretty daring. A pastiche of all things 80’s.

Virgin are following up this campaign with the soft launch of Vtravelled on 28th February. Vtravelled will be a community site which allows visitors to organise and share their travel plans with friends and family. The public roll out will follow in June.

Vtravelled will certainly be filling a gap in the market- organising you travel plans and finding travel content isn’t always easy. Personally I find it frustrating having to look through multiple websites to filter out the information that I need.

Virgin Atlantic is targeting the site at people who take holidays more than three times a year, with a focus on the UK and US audiences. It will include Trip Pods where individuals can put together their travel plans and then invite friends to the area, share photos, notes and chat.

So far Virgin’s 25th birthday looks pretty cool to me…