THE ADVERTISER: Virgin Trains

THE BRIEF: Show that going by train gives you thinking time

THE SCHTICK: Apaches on horseback race down a British hillside chasing a Virgin Pendolino train. In hot pursuit, they fire arrows at it, to no avail. One manages to hang on to a window, where he wields a tomahawk and gestures to a passenger that they want his notebook. The passenger clutches the book to his chest, and the Apache is knocked off by an approaching tunnel. The caption is: "Man who go on big train have big idea."

THE BREAKDOWN: Seen one way, this advert is refreshingly escapist. It's big, it's dramatic, it's got great scenery and music, and is a stylish successor to last year's classic which stitched together Hollywood moments (such as Eva Marie Saint canoodling with Cary Grant) on board a modern Virgin train.

But seen another way, despite the excellence of the production, it can be rather confusing, it buries its message, and it can leave you feeling a little uncomfortable.

For too long, the thinking goes, train travel has been seen as the nightmare option, crippled with delays and overcrowding. So Virgin's tactic has been to emphasise the romance of the train - literally in the Cary Grant ad, and by extension here.

Going by train gives you time to ponder, space to look at the scenery, and opportunity to daydream. Crucially, here, it's the sort of place you might have a really good idea.

Puzzled passenger

In a delightfully random way, the Apaches knock over a cyclist but ignore a couple of shepherds, who only seem faintly amused. Their whoops and arrows and their horses' pounding hooves almost get the viewer's pulse racing. The passenger, who has just been pictured having a smart thought and jotting it down, is puzzled and vaguely threatened until it becomes clear that, yes, the Apaches are after him.

Brand consultant Keith Lovegrove, author of Railway: Identity, Design and Culture, who was a fan of the Cary Grant advert and is impressed with this one too, says he particularly enjoyed the notion of the Apache chief attempting to steal the passenger's intellectual copyright. "Perhaps that's the 21st Century equivalent of lever-action Winchester Carbines," he says.

Big ideas brigade

"I think an advertisement should firstly entertain and then inform. This does both, although I notice that a quick fade-in/fade-out subtitle tells us from the outset that this exciting interlude may be experienced in 'First Class only'. Train travel does give one time to think, possibly more so in first class where there are fewer fellow passengers and even fewer children."

There is a downside, however. One Native American living in the UK - part of a community reported to be just 25-strong - has complained that the advert is "trying to show us as savages or dumb-ass Indians who are going to be wiped off the face of the Earth". He is not alone - there have been 49 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority about racism and stereotypes in the advert, and the ASA is now investigating the matter.

Virgin's position is that the advert "spoofs the cowboy and Indian genre and is quite tongue-in-cheek", which is undoubtedly true. With the use of language, a spokesman said, it's clear that the advert is based on the film genre rather than showing disrespect to Native Americans today.

Subversive enough?

Another drawback with the advert, it might be suggested, is that it's not immediately clear what it's saying. On first viewing one might even think it was advertising Ernest Hemingway-style Moleskine notebooks. If it's the idea the Apaches are after, how exactly are they supposed to know the passenger has just had it? Until the viewer has seen and understood the "Man who go on big train" tagline, their chances of understanding the message are slim. Good job, in that case, that the advert repays repeated viewing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5407908.stm
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R-_ToitBkk&NR=1
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