The date was Jan 31st 1993 and the Super Bowl venue was The Rose Bowl in Pasadena CA where the Dallas Cowboys faced off against the Buffalo Bills. It was the Bills second consecutive appearance in what would become three trips in a row to the big game – all of which they would manage to lose.

Even back then, Super Bowl TV ads cost an arm and several legs, so for Virgin Atlantic, then only a nine-year-old upstart, there was no way our meagre ad budget could support such a thing: In fact the whole year’s budget would likely have fallen short of the cost of just one 30 second spot on NBC who were covering game. Undeterred, we did what we did best – we improvised and threw caution to the winds!

The Virgin Group happened to own an airship company at the time, so we asked nicely if there was any way we could borrow one for the day. Fortunately, they just happened to have one on the west coast that had no particular plans, so we swung into action. As you will see from the above we decked the sides of the blimp with a simple “FLY VIRGIN” but it was the belly banner that got us the attention: And boy did it get us attention!

Almost every time the network cut away to commercial breaks and all those million dollar ads, guess where the NBC cameras strayed for a few fleeting seconds? To the Virgin airship and the audacious belly banner that declared, “NBC CAMERAMEN ARE THE SEXIEST MEN ALIVE”

Needless to say, it got us vast amounts of coverage on the day and in the media at large, and our sales spiked quite remarkably in the following week. As thrilled as we were, the NFL was less enthusiastic and promptly changed the overflight rules for subsequent games.

So sorry guys but there can never be a repeat of the day little Virgin Atlantic hijacked the big show.