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It stands to reason that prior to erecting a billboard 15 storeys high in the heart of downtown Toronto screaming "Screw you recession!" to the streetscape, the decision makers at Virgin Mobile paused.

And wondered: Are we igniting some business risk here?

Is the message too aggressive?

Just a tad?

Here's the answer: Any day now Virgin Mobile will launch a "screw you recession" website, and is busily building a broad "screw you" marketing campaign, having found that far from being too risqué the "screw you" sentiment — meant, of course, to woo you to Virgin product offerings — strikes just the right note with the Virgin target market.

Makes sense, actually.

Two months ago the company waded into its latest round of field research, with 1,500 consumers nationwide. The company talked to respondents as young as 17 and as old as 34. (Virgin's core market settles around the mid-20s age band.)

"We were surprised by how powerful these insights were," says Andrew Bridge, the company's director of brand and communications. "This core group hasn't gone through such economic change or turmoil before. ... Seeing their friends laid off, or the way their own employers are treating them differently, has had a big impact on the way they see things."

Their "mood meter," as Mr. Bridge calls it, is registering anxiety, fear and skepticism. Specific findings will be unsettling to brand managers and their bosses.

Example: 41 per cent of these consumers have given up a brand they love.

"They just feel really let down," says Nathan Rosenberg, Virgin Mobile's chief marketing officer.

"They're angry with government. They're angry with banks. They're angry with big organizations that have been profitable," he says. "It's almost like they're saying, all this time you really weren't investing in anything."

Some of the market insights echo sentiments broadly expressed since the economy commenced its luge run. Retrenching is in: spend less, stay home, travel light, play board games.

Downgrading is chic — "all the stuff that [they] thought nothing of paying for in the past because it's just rounding," says Mr. Bridge. (Think of what Mr. Bridge calls "extreme x mega whatever" wireless charges.)

These consumers are engaged in a new form of badging: identifying themselves via the deals they've gotten and the shrewdness of the decision-making that underlies those purchases.

"The price point is only part of the discussion," says Mr. Rosenberg.

"It's the proof points. A cheap decision can still be a bad decision. They want to make the decision that's the right one."

(Some word-for-word responses from those surveyed include, "It feels like my stuff owns me"; "Gotta get me some new goals"; and "I'm going to get my own back on those that ripped me off.")

Simplicity is desired, as is empathy.

Consumers want marketers to trim back the messages, says Mr. Rosenberg. "Show me that you get what's going on in my life," he says, stepping into the consumer's shoes.

"Because if you don't and you keep marketing to me the way you've been marketing, I'm not going to listen."

And here's a key insight: Humour is good. "Despite all the dramorama, people still like a little bit of laughter."

To that point Virgin Mobile wants to become the R-rated — that's recession-proof rated — cellphone of choice. "We want to be on their side," says Mr. Rosenberg, by not being afraid of the "R" word.

At the core of the initiative will be the screwyourecession.ca website. Online banner ads will invite consumers to express how they, er, screw the recession. Not in expletives, but in money saving tips.

Virgin will then take the best of those messages and repurpose them into the company's out-of-home campaign. Wall posters will be plastered in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver with consumers' own contributions. The more static billboard and transit shelter ads — extending to Montreal — will carry in-house creative, but, who knows, a particularly clever participant could see his or her contribution up on the big board one day. "Your tip could become a transit shelter," says Mr. Bridge.

The website aims to be a marketplace of ideas. Fashion tips. Nightlife. Coupons. "And you can rant a little bit if you feel you need to," offers Mr. Rosenberg.

By late March the company will be putting the final touches on its Screw You Recession summit. Negotiations with a high-profile, "socially cool" motivational speaker in the personal finance genre are under way.

"There are tons of arms and legs" to the campaign, says Mr. Bridge. "We're finding those connections that I would argue in the mobile space it would be very hard for other brands to provide."

By that he means that Virgin Mobile is still a relative upstart in a market dominated by large, incumbent players that he believes would have a tougher time launching a campaign with such cheek.

Says Mr. Rosenberg: "It's not a stretch for us to be seen doing something like this."

Will this "point of resentment," as Mr. Rosenberg calls it, cause consumers to shift their allegiance in Virgin Mobile's favour? That's the gamble. "From the mobile standpoint we want people, when their contracts come up, to look at us and say, oh, here's someone who gets what I'm going through," says Mr. Bridge.

By yesterday, the burbling excitement in the new campaign started to grow beyond Canada's borders.

The company secured www.screwyourecession.com as well. This could be big.

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Virgin Mobile's 'mood meter'

72%

Number of Canadians under age 35 who are anxious about their future

41%

Proportion of Canadians under age 35 who have given up a brand they love

52%

Number of Canadians under age 35 who are open to trying value brands

88%

Share of Canadian consumers under age 35 who have changed their shopping habits

42%

Number of Canadians under age 35 who are making "noticeable sacrifices"

76%

Proportion of Canadians under age 35 who doubt the ethics of major corporations

42%

Number of Canadians under age 35 who fear being unemployed

Virgin Mobile survey of 1,500 Canadians conducted in December 2008/January 2009