The Virgin way

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Paul Charles, the communications director at global airline Virgin Atlantic, admitted that his job, to protect and promote the Virgin brand, is fun and easy with the "Rebel Billionaire" Sir Richard Branson at the helm. "The boss carried the brand over a series of generations over the past 40 years", he said during a presentation at the Arabian Business Media and Marketing Conference last week.

The driver behind the Virgin's continued expansion and success is Virgin Atlantic, and the push to differentiate and improve is part of Branson's personality. Charles told of the main reason why Branson entered the cut-throat industry: "He was desperate to get into the industry, because frankly, he had too many bad chicken meals, too many bad beef meals, and no videos to watch at the back of the plane." This banal and ubiquitous observation of air travel drove Branson to start an airline that flew one route 23 years ago. Today, Virgin flies "to 30 destinations and it's an airline that has 38 planes in its fleet. Back then in 1984, there were 40 people that started the airline; today, there are 9500 people working in Virgin Atlantic."

An airline with 38 planes has an iconic status in the travel industry, a feat that required smart public relations and the building of a personality cult surrounding Richard Branson. The extent of Branson's reach, and the modular nature of his persona, was displayed through a series of marketing images used as Virgin entered new markets. Charles said that "you can't go in and plan any old photo, it has to be a photo that tells a story, that works in the local market, and it should tell a story on how you are going to change a market." As examples, he showed Richard in a Lawrence of Arabia outfit, Richard in Nairobi, Richard in Millennium Park in Chicago, and Richard in Jamaica. But the one that really stand out and illustrates Richard's cult of personality is the Shanghai launch.

The image is simple enough, with Branson on bicycle ahead of a gathering of Chinese men and women on bicycles behind him. Charles said that while the image conveys that perhaps 20 people were behind Richard, the number is closer to 3000. "It almost became a cult movement, and I would argue to an extent the Virgin brand is almost like a cult movement," Charles explained.

A recent survey revealed that a sizable majority of people believe that Virgin is well ahead of other airlines on the environment issue - even though Virgin has not drastically altered its operations yet. Charles said that the "tide of change is rapidly enveloping our side of the world. If you are not a green business in 20 year's time, I don't think you will exist on this planet." After Virgin agreed on a deal to buy 15 Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner' aircraft, Charles revealed that "we actually persuaded the chairman of Boeing to do a major news conference. You can imagine the word ‘environment' in the US is still a touchy subject, and in fact Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, was really reluctant even earlier this year to talk about the environment. The Virgin approach is to talk about these things, get out there, explain what is happening and talk about how you are trying to change things... When we innovate, we like to explain what we are doing. We wanted to make quite an important statement, about how the environment is actually the fundamental thing that is going to change our business."

With a combination of leading on hot issues and the charisma of Branson, Charles and Virgin are poised to remain flying high - at least from a marketing standpoint.

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