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Gordon's Republic

Virgin virals and bloggy legal suits

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Virgin is having a strange PR week. First the speculation that the "best letter of complaint ever" is a viral and now a legal suit against ad blog Adrants over a spoof Hudson river crash ad. Is any of that good PR

According to Agency Spy, Virgin America is suing Adrants in the federal court over a spoof ad featuring a picture of the downed US Airways Airbus with the copy: "The Hudson Crash: Just One More Reason to Fly Virgin."

It's alright as spoofs go, kind of obvious (easy to say after the fact, granted), but not earth shattering. Maybe it’s a little in bad taste? Maybe. But the thing is it would have passed pretty much without notice until Virgin got all legal gorilla on Adrants and now the spoof ad is all over the web. We've all seen it and we all know that Virgin is getting mean.

Weird thing is Virgin is always doing spoof ads of its own. It ran for instance the Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton themed ads last year. It usually has a fine sense of humour as brands go. So what's that about?

Apparently it wasn't the picture so much as the copy that offended Virgin. The copy sort of implied that the brand was good at turning ugly situations to its own advantage. The Spitzer ad is just that.

Virgin asked Adrants to take it down. The blog's editor, Angela Natividad, responded by adding this above the post: "UPDATE: Clearly, this ad is fake. A spoof. Virgin America has confirmed this. We were always suspect from the get go and didn't mean to mislead or misrepresent. So we'll clearly state now: the ad is a spoof. It's not real. Virgin America had nothing to do with its creation."

Oh hindsight. It's at that moment you take it down as the clarification was not enough for Virgin who wanted it deleted. I was in this mess myself recently and, well, it is quite scary when lawyers from large corporation send you emails and demand you call them back urgently (tip: leaving your phone on voicemail doesn't really help). At BR we deleted said post immediately and that was it.

Virgin America is suing for punitive damages and fees. That could get expensive. It is a ridiculous suit, clearly Virgin is trying to scare other blogs and websites to ensure people do not post this kind of material again. It could also put the little independent Adrants out of business. Shame.

Which brings us to the "best letter of complaint ever". Well that's what people are calling it. Personally, it goes on and on a little too long for me – I mean who has six pages of complaint in them? Not me.

But that is not to attract from the achievement of Oli Beale at WCRS who wrote the letter. Stand-up job Oli. You're like a web star. Question here though is the letter genuine? I mean really?

It has been so widely covered, spreading across the online world earlier this week and now today it appears as a double page spread in the Sun.

Beale has said it is not a viral. Hmmm. Maybe. Against it being a viral is that the impression it leaves you with is not totally a positive one.

In favour of it being a viral is that it feels like a joke waiting a punch line. I mean everyone knows airport food sucks, which has given rise to the rumour that Virgin is about to sign a top chef. Or something.

Also against it being genuine is that the timing is too good coming as it does in Virgin Atlantic's 25th anniversary. I'm guessing we will know soon enough one way of another.