The UPC-to-Virgin Media marketing campaign steps up this week with the launch of a television advertisement voiced by actor Patrick Stewart in full Shakespearian / Picardesque mode.

The "Here Comes the Magic" ad also features a beaming Richard Branson behind the wheel of a Virgin "magic truck" (a bright red HGV) that swallows up a convoy of UPC Ireland-branded vans. The advertisement was filmed at Weston Airport and elsewhere in Dublin a month before last week's launch event at the RDS, which saw Branson make his entrance in a truck.

UPC Ireland's "Life Flows Better with UPC" campaign ran on television screens until very recently and has now been replaced by the Virgin Media campaign to mark both its rebranding and its new Virgin Mobile offers. "We're just getting started," said Virgin Media head of brand and marketing Meadhbh Quinn.

Like the UPC ad (which began "this is the girl who lived with her parrot..."), the creative agency behind the Virgin Media advertisements is Irish International and the media-buying agency is OMD.