Richard Branson - Business Stripped Bare

A large part of the Virgin story has been my willingness to be a central character in our publicity. I don’t know how many different outfits I’ve dressed up in during my business life — probably more than Laurence Olivier. I can thank Jackie McQuillan, my director of Media Relations, for a great deal of them. Over the last fifteen years she’s dreamed up many costumes and hair-raising stunts for me — from shaving off my beard and donning a wedding dress, to dressing up as an Indian prince and jumping off a building in Mumbai, while playing a drum, to launch our first ever business in India! I believe the public has enjoyed the kind of visual stunts we’ve pulled over the years. The reason they’re enjoyable is that they’re very carefully thought through. They have to be witty. They have to make people smile. They have to engage the mind as well as the eyes. They have to work in the telling as well as the witnessing. And they absolutely must convey the qualities of the brand as well as the message. My near-naked appearance in Times Square in July 2002 is a good example: to unveil our partnership with MTV, a division of Viacom, I wore only a cellphone to cover my nether regions. ‘I’m here to physically prove that Virgin Mobile USA’s national cellphone service has nothing to hide,’ I said.

And as we’ll see, Virgin’s reputation as a have-a-go company has had one unforeseen but highly valuable consequence: when things go wrong with our oh-so-carefully rehearsed stunts, they still convey the brand!

But is it constructive to have so much attention and focus on the boss of a business? It can occasionally work against you. As I’ll explain later, all that nonsense in the media about my ‘sweetheart deal’ with the British prime minister Gordon Brown, just because we were on the same plane, did our bid for the troubled Northern Rock bank no favours. But all in all I think the positives outweigh the negatives. My own high-profile adventures have not just highlighted the brand, they’ve personified it. I’ve used my success in business to throw myself into some truly wonderful adventures. The speedboating and the ballooning were great for the brand because they were real challenges, undertaken in a spirit that reflected our brand values. And they were enormous fun. World-record attempts are not everyone’s cup of tea, and wouldn’t add value to every brand. The trick is to find your own way to personify your own brand values; I think you will feel the advantage.

In general, the media has been extremely fair to the Virgin brand. We’ve been able to enliven the news, features and comment pages with some of our challenges — and because we have so many consumer-facing businesses there’s always a regular stream of news stories to whet the media’s appetite. Our press people ensure that journalists are invited along to every product launch and are kept up to speed with our plans. For any business building a consumer brand, speaking to journalists is part of the deal. I’ve met a lot of business people who shy away from public attention, but I feel the Virgin Group has had a strong relationship with the media over many years. Besides, I started out as a fledgling journalist with Student ; I enjoy the company of editors, journalists, writers and public relations people.

Having said that, I think it is important for the public relations people to build the profile of individual companies and their leaders within the wider group. Steve Ridgway is the chief executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways and he remains in the background — usually with a smile on his face — when I’m making an announcement or undertaking a media stunt. But Steve is also happy to appear in feature articles and business trade magazines that are relevant to promote the airline. That’s the way it should be and I’m pleased that all the chief executives of the Virgin Group companies work hard at promoting the brand.

I was jet-lagged after a fourteen-hour flight and taken straight off the plane. A whirling helicopter was waiting for me on the tarmac at the private aviation centre. I thought for a moment I might be hitching a quick trip to my hotel, but I was mistaken.

One of the Virgin team put a harness around me and over my head, strapped me in tight, and clipped me to a wire rope. I was about to get a bumper adrenalin rush which blew away any lingering yawns from the flight.

My arrival into Australia was bum-tightening. It was the closest I’ve ever been to flying like a bird. I can assure you it’s not the normal route for our Virgin airline passengers arriving at the Kingsford Smith airport and heading to downtown Sydney. I was hauled off the ground, dangling 100 feet underneath the helicopter as we rose higher and higher above the skyline. It was a spectacular way to arrive, like Peter Pan flying over London. Instead of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, I could see girls sunbathing on Bondi Beach, and surfers gliding along in the aquamarine waters below. The aerial tour took me over Sydney Harbour Bridge, and I was so close, my shoes nearly scuffed the top of the arch. We went whizzing past the Sydney Opera House, with dozens of people waving up at me, and landed at Custom House Quay, and the waiting pack of media. I was supposed to be telling them about the launch of Virgin Mobile Australia. I took a deep breath.

Every time I go to Australia it’s full on. I’ve waterskied behind an airship in shark-infested water, been rescued by the Bondi Beach babes, bantered with radio host Rosso, of Merrick and Rosso fame, handed out the choc ices at V Festival — all the normal things that a chairman should get up to, but very rarely does.

I’m regularly asked what I’ve learned about doing business down under. Has the experience of setting up Virgin Blue been different in Australia to elsewhere? The answer is yes; it has been different — and highly rewarding too.

I think Australians warm to the idea of the Virgin brand more than any other nation in the world — and that includes Britain. Even before Virgin Blue took off, the Virgin brand had 94 per cent recognition in the country, perhaps created in some way by my ballooning and powerboating activities and my autobiography, Losing My Virginity , which has sold well in Australia. In 2008, Virgin Blue was listed as one of the top ten brands in the Asia-Pacific region, and one of the top five most trusted brands in Australia.

I’ve tried to work out why the Virgin brand should have struck such a chord with the Australian people, and I think it’s because having fun is an unofficial national sport there. The outlook of most Australians isn’t parochial. Many have been off backpacking around the globe and doing their own thing before settling down. The Aussies don’t like unnecessary regulations or petty officiousness, and they are prepared to work their socks off, then go and party like there’s no tomorrow.

I’ve always tended to think of Virgin as a youthful brand (not a ‘youth brand’: that’s a different, narrower idea). In Australia, though, I don’t think Virgin’s brand values carry the same connotations about age. I think everyone gets it, straight away, without worrying about whether our offering is for their generation or not.

Given Virgin’s growing maturity, and the ever increasing distance we’re putting between our current businesses and memories of our progressive-rock roots, Virgin’s welcome in Australia is reassuring. It convinces me that our cross-generational appeal isn’t a fluke, and that our offering is pretty much universally welcomed.

It’s been fascinating to see how the Virgin brand interacts with other aspects of the Australian national character. When you compete against Australians, it’s hardball, but usually scrupulously fair. They also like the underdog and most of our businesses in Australia fitted that model, even though Virgin, as a group, now employs thousands of people down under. Part of the Australian sporting ethos is to play tough and during any game drive your competitor into the ground as hard as you can and then have a few beers afterwards with your opponent and celebrate — or commiserate — in friendship. ‘No hard feelings, mate,’ is a widespread Aussie expression after a tussle. That’s the Virgin way, too — though we’d never thought of the brand in quite those terms when we started. So it may be that the Virgin Blue experience is adding a further meaning to the Virgin brand.