Close-Up: Live Issue - Is Kate Moss still a good brand icon?

Noel Bussey asks whether Virgin Mobile is taking a risk in using the model in its latest campaign.

In the week that Virgin Mobile aired the first ad to star its new brand spokesperson, the model Kate Moss, The Sun ran a front- page story under the headline: 'The UK's Moss wanted,' revealing that the Metropolitan Police still wants to talk to her in relation to pictures in the Daily Mirror showing her snorting cocaine.

Virgin Mobile's decision to sign up the model, who has failed to return to the UK since the story broke in September last year, has raised a number of eyebrows. Typically, brands part company with their spokespeople at any hint of controversy. Churchill dropped Vic Reeves from one of its ads after the comic crashed his car and was charged with drink-driving.

The concern is that Virgin Mobile aims its advertising at the impressionable young adult/teen market, and by using Moss, it is making light of the situation and possibly glamorising drug use, showing that users can still be successful icons.

However, James Kydd, the brand director at Virgin Mobile, doesn't believe the appointment raises any moral questions.

'A lot of people have tried drugs, and we've employed a number of people in the past who have had problems with addiction, so it's not massively out of character for our brand,' Kydd says.

'We've done the right thing by using Kate. We wouldn't use someone like Pete Doherty, who hasn't confronted his issues. He wouldn't work as a brand icon.'