The "Red Academy" has been created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, and stars a character called Damien, who takes the place of the child trainer Dylan, star of the Orange "learn" campaign.
In a series of three films, planned, seeded and tracked by Digital Media Communications, Damien will tell a class facts such as "80% of people use 10% of their friends" to drive home the point that they should forget about the functions on their phones and simply call their friends.
The "learn" campaign promoted Orange's in-store phone trainers, with Dylan teaching people about the different functions of their phones. But the campaign drew much criticism, with reports -- denied by the company -- that it held a briefing for marketing journalists to defend the campaign. Orange is now running a price-led campaign called "fair", also created by Mother.
It is the second attack that Virgin Mobile has launched on Orange's advertising -- previously, Virgin Mobile had run a campaign disputing Orange's "fair" ad promoting its 1p text messaging rate to any network.
Earlier this month, Virgin Mobile had threatened to recommend the rest of the Virgin Group pull ads from all News International papers after The Times refused a Virgin ad attacking Orange.
James Kydd, brand director for Virgin Mobile, said: "Big brands can sometimes take themselves too seriously and -- as in the case of Orange -- end up with marketing initiatives that are somewhat wide of the mark.
"We're simply having a bit of fun and using DMC's online buzz marketing expertise to share the joke with peers and customers who, from the reaction to Orange's campaign, do not appreciate being spoken down to."
The films can be watched at . The films were also screened at this year's V Festival.
Justin Kirby, managing director of DMC, said: "Our online film tracking system will provide real-time accountability of the film's views and hotlinks in order to quantify the campaign's impact."
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