Mills & Boon and Virgin Trains kiss and make up for Comic Relief

by Ben Bold, Brand Republic 13-Mar-09, 13:00

LONDON - Mills & Boon and Virgin Trains are raising money for Comic Relief by kissing and making up after the publisher last month launched a viral campaign deriding Virgin's ban on kissing at Warrington station.

The reconciliation was devised by Mills & Boon's advertising agency, St Luke's, and involves a series of kissing events at stations including Euston, Warrington Bank Quay and Glasgow.

Events include:

Mills & Boon book-jacket photo opportunities.
The chance for passengers to pay (for Red Nose Day) to kiss Brad Pitt look-a-likes.
"Kissing mint" giveaways.
Live readings by costumed characters from the publisher's romantic fiction.
Book giveaways.

Warrington-based Mills & Boon author Annie Burrows and Virgin Trains' director of communications, Arthur Leathley launched the Warrington event.

St Luke's won the Mills & Boon business last December.

In February, Virgin Rail put up signs next to a taxi rank banning couples from kissing, in an attempt to prevent them from holding up queues.

St Lukes responded with a digital campaign targeting social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

The agency also distributed downloadable posters, which bore slogans such as "Kiss off kissing killjoys" and "Why so frigid Virgin?".