Richard BRANDson

I searched for “motivation” in the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) library this morning from my iPhone, as I dragged myself to the exercise bike. The only result returned was Richard Branson’s life at 30,000 feet (yes, I was surprised by this result as well and I’m sure there are more hidden in the TED library). Indeed it was a motivating talk but most of all, it got me thinking about how far and wide the Virgin brand has spread.

The face of one man, backed by tens of thousands of employees who aren’t staff but “team members”, is the strength of the brand. Beginning with his “Student” magazine in 1968, the Branson brand created Virgin Mail Order (records not people, obviously) that grew into a music label, followed by his first Virgin Atlantic flight in 1984 and manifesting through retails, trains, brides, money, radio, cosmetics and phones.

Virgin is now one of the world’s most recognised and respected brands. It says so on their website. And rightly so. Aside from the usual “innovative”, “creative”, “value for money” euphemisms for “we think our brand is good”, what springs to mind when you think of the Virgin brand?

Richard Branson. Massive commercial scale. Success. Cutting edge. Fun.

Apple, Microsoft, News Corporation, Hilton – there are a few corporate brands I can think of where the logo is associated with a CEO face as strongly as Virgin for the mass audience (CEO/heir, let’s not be picky). Fewer still where the face is also the founder.

He should be called Richard BRANDson.

NB: In their own words,

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

TED is a strong brand itself and those who know of TED will probably describe the brand in a similar way. I will explore this in my next post.

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