Walkers, the UK’s leading savoury snacking brand, has launched an on-pack promotion offering shoppers 25% off Virgin Experience Days over the summer period.

The promotion will appear on the top five snack lines in the market, Walkers Quavers, Wotsits, Monster Munch, Squares and French Fries, in multi and single-serve packs.

This exclusive discount is available with every pack and can be used on the Virgin Experience Days product range, which includes over 2,000 activities to choose from. The on-pack promotion will run up until October 14th, 2018, driving sales of the products throughout the summer.

To enter, shoppers need to visit the promotional site stated on the back of their promotional pack to register for an instant unique code. The code then allows them to book any Virgin Experience Days activity of their choice and receive a 25% discount at checkout.

Walkers says that up to 60% of people plan summer activities at least three months in advance, and its promotion will help shoppers make the most of the British summertime, whatever the weather.

Rachel Holms, Walkers Marketing Director, comments: “We’re really looking forward to kicking off our latest on-pack promotion as we will be helping Walkers fans fill their holidays with exciting activities at a reduced cost. 45% of households in the UK already buy into the Walkers snacks range and purchase on average seven times a year, so we are confident that the activity will be a success.”

The launch of the Walkers and Virgin Experience Days partnership will be accompanied by major in-store support across both grocery and impulse channels.

The Walkers brand is owned by global drinks and snacks company, PepsiCo. PepsiCo generated approximately $63 billion in net revenue in 2016, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. 22 of its brands generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.

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Inflexion Private Equity has announced that funds managed by Inflexion have completed the buyout of Virgin Experience Days, the UK’s leading experiences business.

Virgin Experience Days offers curated experiences to consumers and corporates, from flying Spitfires to short luxury breaks, selling over 750,000 experiences annually. A high-growth business, revenue has doubled to £50m in three years, driven by a seamless tech-enabled customer experience and the ongoing consumer shift to sharing experiences over tangible goods.

Virgin Experience Days operates B2C and B2B divisions. Virgin Incentives, the B2B division, offers experience days for employee rewards and recognition programmes, with clients such as Barclaycard and Samsung.

As part of the buyout, Inflexion introduced leisure sector expert, Simon McMurtrie, as Chairman and the highly experienced Commercial Director, Matthew Briggs. Both will work alongside CEO Paul O’Brien who has led the business for over a decade. Inflexion will work closely with this team to create long-term sustainable growth.

Capitalising on our international reach, Inflexion will help accelerate sales into new markets with growing demand for personalised experiences, and support the re-launch of Virgin Incentives in the multi-billion-pound employee rewards and recognition market. Inflexion’s digital expertise will also help advance the company’s digital marketing strategy.

Paul O’Brien, CEO, Virgin Experience Days, says: “It’s been a pleasure leading Virgin Experience Days over the last 12 years, and I am proud of the successful business it is today. Inflexion shares our vision for growth, backed by their digital expertise and international reach; we look forward to a prosperous partnership.”

Tim Smallbone, Head of Enterprise, Inflexion, adds: “Virgin Experience Days is a globally recognised and respected brand with international growth potential. We’re delighted to back an ambitious management team in a sector where Inflexion has a strong track record, with businesses such as On the Beach, Reed & Mackay and Reward Gateway. This is the third investment this year for our Enterprise Fund that partners with high-growth businesses in the lower mid-market.”

The Inflexion deal team comprised of Tim Smallbone, Tom Pemberton, Shiva Tiwari and Robin Senivassen. Smallbone and Tiwari have joined the Virgin Experiences board on completion.

Inflexion is an award-winning UK mid-market private equity firm, investing equity of £10m to £150m in high growth, entrepreneurial businesses with ambitious management teams and working in partnership with them to accelerate growth. A mid-market specialist with bespoke teams and dedicated capital, Inflexion backs majority or minority investments in the lower mid-market, mid-market buyouts and provides minority solutions for larger mid-market companies through its dedicated Partnership Capital offering.

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Virgin Experience Days has launched its 2016 marketing Christmas campaign, with an animated film which aims to remind people of the everlasting magic of memories.

Set to the track ‘Adventurers’, by singer/songwriter, Holley Maher, the film features a young couple exchanging Christmas gifts.  The man is puzzled when he receives an empty photograph frame – but then realises his present also includes a Virgin Experience Day gift pack.  A short animation then zooms in on some of the couple’s adventures together, memories now framed on the mantelpiece and never forgotten.

The advert, featuring the strapline ‘What memories will you create this Christmas?’ launched on the online retailer’s web site last week and will feature in a digital, social and YouTube campaign including the hashtag #ChristmasToRemember.

The campaign builds on the current UK lifestyle trend towards ‘doing stuff not buying stuff’, after Virgin Experience Days saw a pickup in demand for experience gifts as the UK turns its back on material things.

The same basic creative approach will be used across both Virgin Experience Days’ consumer-facing communications and its business-to-business operations.

Tim Watkins, Virgin Experience Days Director of Sales & Partnerships, says: “The Christmas campaign highlights experiences as the new riches.  As a nation, we’ve reached ‘peak stuff’ and consumer priorities are changing from ‘buying stuff’ to ‘doing things’ as we spend more on holidays, entertainment and eating out to service a lifestyle. Naturally, this trend is reflected in our corporate sales activity, with customers and employees increasingly choosing experiences over gift cards for material goods. Forward thinking businesses have identified this trend and we’ve seen a marked increase in incentive programmes focusing on experience benefits and rewards.“

The animation, developed in-house by Virgin Experience Days Lead Designer, Craig Francies, has been created using Modo. It can be viewed at https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/christmastoremember and on the Virgin Experience Days YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hq7Asvv00

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