Cable giant Virgin Media UK has decided that the best way to promote its superfast broadband internet access is by working with an acclaimed food artist, Prudence Staite, to create the world's first billboard made entirely of.. CHEESE. The new advertising campaign also features Speedy Gonzales, a fast running cartoon character that many will remember as being "The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico".

There's no sign of Sylvester the Cat in this advert, so we're guessing that Speedy, in defence of Mexico's national and apparently rat infested cheese production line (see the cartoon for reference), eventually won his war of attrition and buried Sylvester's body somewhere in the desert before, perhaps, sending his head to BT Retail.


So we now find Speedy working in the UK with Virgin Media to promote broadband internet access, an entirely logical change of course from protecting state cheese production. After all, in 1999 the Cartoon Network banned him due to certain issues of racism stemming from bad "ethnic stereotypes".

In particular Speedy's fellow mice were frequently depicted as being very slow and lazy, often due to an apparently high degree of intoxication. Then there's Slowpoke, whom also carried a gun. As you might expect, Virgin has wisely chosen not to feature any of those elements in its campaign.


We're fairly confident that Road Runner was actually faster than Speedy Gonzales but it's hard to say. In one episode we distinctly recall Road Runner circumnavigation the globe several times in the space of just a few short seconds. By contrast Speedy didn't even leave Mexico until 2010 to work with Virgin.

Virgin's campaign will also be joined by a new TV advert featuring the popular cartoon mouse, which will air this Saturday during X Factor and run on prime time television until 10th December 2010. Naturally it's not the first time that Virgin Media has pulled an entertaining advertising stunt like this..