Virgin Atlantic Cargo’s distinctive marketing has earned the airline the coveted Marketing Award of the Year in the Payload Asia Awards 2014. The award winners were announced at a gala dinner in Singapore, attended by some 300 leading executives from the region’s air cargo industry. Virgin Atlantic Cargo was honoured for the second time in three years for its stand-out marketing campaigns. Announcing the award, Donald Urquhart, Editor of Payload Asia, said: “This award is aimed at recognising clever, creative, thought provoking and/or quite simply beautiful advertising. Although there is increasingly stiff competition in this area Virgin Atlantic Cargo – for the second time - has clearly demonstrated it fits the bill in all of these points with marketing that makes you stop, look and most likely smile!” In addition to its memorable ‘Our world revolves around our customers’ and ‘A splash of difference’ advertising campaigns, and it’s hard to ignore external communications and promotions, Virgin Atlantic Cargo is well-known for its creative exhibition stands at leading industry events such as Air Cargo Europe, and its role as host of the ‘welcome’ party at the CNS Conference in the United States which has seen the number of annual attendees more than double to over 550 U.S freight industry executives end since Virgin’s sponsorship began in 2013. And who else would organise a Christmas party for customers in Johannesburg in July! Karen Kerslake, Head of Marketing & PR, at Virgin Atlantic Cargo, said: “We believe marketing is all about being memorable, impactful and informative and we apply this approach across everything we touch. We also like to have a little fun along the way, taking care to understand the regional and cultural differences of the audience and country we are speaking to. Our number one objective is to get noticed by standing out from the crowd and to leave our audience wondering ‘What’s Virgin going to do next?’ We are therefore extremely proud to have won this award."