Virgin and Entourage Hug It Out

Vinny Chase may never fly commercial to Vegas, but if he did, Richard Branson wants you to know that he would fly Virgin America.

At least, he would for now. In honor of Virgin America's new non-stop flight from New York to Las Vegas, and the start of the fifth season of the series Entourage, Virgin America presents "Entourage Air," an in-flight experience themed around the television show.

For huge fans of the series, it may almost be worth the price of a ticket. Virgin's first J.F.K. to Vegas flight next Thursday, will premiere the fifth season's first episode onboard -- three days ahead of the September 7 premiere on HBO.

At least one of the planes serving Vegas will be decorated with an appropriately themed wrapper (read: billboard with wings), and if you pony up for a first class ticket on that route during the month of September, you will get to fly... are you ready? "Entourage Class."

That means noise canceling headphones, champagne, Godiva chocolates, Kiehl's products, and Entourage Air branded blankets and eye masks for you, sir.

Entourage, which made its debut in 2004 and has since grown into one of H.B.O.'s big hits among young male viewers, follows the opulent lives of a fictional big-name actor and his friends as they navigate the film scene (is there any other?) in Los Angeles.

"We thought that HBO and Entourage are hip, a little cheeky, upscale, with New York to L.A. as a focus, and that's the focus of our service," says Abby Lunardini, the head of communications for Virgin America. "Our airline is about reinventing travel, and we thought it was a nice fit given the launch of season five."

The launch of Entourage Air also marks a new, broader deal between HBO and Virgin America, giving Virgin passengers on all routes access to HBO content through October 2009.

The nascent airline, which currently serves San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Los Vegas, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., sees its state-of-the-art entertainment system and plush leather seats as its big differentiators against competitors. Planes feature an interactive touch-screen system called RED which gives passengers access to 30 or so movies and hundreds TV shows on demand, a big step up from your standard coach class options.

Advertising aboard (and plastered onto) airplanes, meanwhile, has been slowly becoming more and more mainstream, but according to Virgin America, the Entourage partnership may be the first co-branding experience of its kind in the airline industry.

As far as the financials are concerned, Lunardi describes the deal as "a mutually beneficial partnership rather than an ad deal per-se," suggesting that perhaps it is a cash-free exchange of content for product placement.

"We're a startup, and we don't have the biggest advertising budget in the world, so we like to rely as much as we can on things like this to generate buzz," Lunardini says.

This particular promo draws attention to Virgin's entertainment system, sure, but it also solidifies the airline's hot pursuit of young, urban men as a target passenger demographic.

Last November Virgin America partnered on a one-off campaign with Victoria's Secret, christening a plane the "Runway Angel" and flying 27 runway models from New York to Los Angeles for a Victoria's Secret Fashion show (later that month the airline also hosted the "first ever in-flight supermodel P.J. party," selling tickets to loyal customers to fly with supermodels and "check out the latest V.S. P.J. fashions at 35,000 feet").

Hmmm.... pajama-clad supermodels? Champagne, leather seats, and noise canceling headphones?

If Virgin could somehow get a high-stakes poker table into the equation, they would be set for life.

Liz Gunnison