Richard Branson - Clever or not?

Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

DER!!

And apparently he is going to become involved in the NHS bcause he has so much experienece in dealing with long queues - at check in, on the busses and on Virgin Trains!!

Originally posted by MarkJ
Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

I can understand that perfectly, it's because of the adventure aspects of the journey, the same reason why there are still global sailing races every year. I admire SRB. Even though not all of his ventures are successful, he has accumulated brand power bigger, in my opinion, than any other company in the world, especially when the Virgin brand isn't constrained to just one type of brand.

[quote]Originally posted by MarkJ
Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

Because he can?????

Originally posted by VS-EWR
the same reason why there are still global sailing races every year.

That sound a good idea - I may set up a company to run them

I have heard SRB is quite bright.

How's your head this morning Mark?

Originally posted by MarkJ
Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

DER!!

And apparently he is going to become involved in the NHS bcause he has so much experienece in dealing with long queues - at check in, on the busses and on Virgin Trains!!

Because he has so much money that he is bored?

Originally posted by VS-EWR

Originally posted by MarkJ
Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

Even though not all of his ventures are successful, he has accumulated brand power bigger, in my opinion, than any other company in the world, especially when the Virgin brand isn't constrained to just one type of brand.

I think in terms of Brand strength
Coca Cola
P&G
Unilever
Pepsico
BMW
Microsoft
Intel

Edited to add qualifier* and 95 or so other brands will all be way ahead of Virgin in the brands league - Esp Unilever and P&G who have numerous brands. P&G for instance have 22 separate $1 billion dollar brands in their portfolio. and Coca Cola is the most widely recognised brand name on a global basis


And yes SRB is mad..... or is he just extremely smart when it comes to getting publicity, probably the latter

Jon B

Lets face it - why would he want to fly around the world in a balloon when he owns his own bleedin' airline?

DER!!

And apparently he is going to become involved in the NHS bcause he has so much experienece in dealing with long queues - at check in, on the busses and on Virgin Trains!!

Mock the Week?;)

VS.

Originally posted by Jon B
and 95 or so other brands will all be way ahead of Virgin in the brands league - Esp Unilever and P&G who have numerous brands. P&G for instance have 22 separate $1 billion dollar brands in their portfolio. and Coca Cola is the most widely recognised brand name on a global basis

I have never heard of either Esp Unilever or P&G, so I don't know how they have brand strength.[:p]

Also, like I said before, Virgin is bigger than Coca Cola in my opinion because Virgin gets involved with a huge variety of different industries.

I wouldn't say that the Virgin brand is stronger than coco-cola; I would expect that in many countries, virgin is unheard of whereas most would have heard of coca-cola.

VS.

Originally posted by VS-EWR

Originally posted by Jon B
and 95 or so other brands will all be way ahead of Virgin in the brands league - Esp Unilever and P&G who have numerous brands. P&G for instance have 22 separate $1 billion dollar brands in their portfolio. and Coca Cola is the most widely recognised brand name on a global basis

I have never heard of either Esp Unilever or P&G, so I don't know how they have brand strength.[:p]

Also, like I said before, Virgin is bigger than Coca Cola in my opinion because Virgin gets involved with a huge variety of different industries.

You probably will have heard of Duracell, Gillette, Pampers, Oral B, Tide, Ivory Soap, Aerial, Braun, Max Factor, Hugo Boss, Olay, Folgers Coffee, Charmin, Bounty, Always, Tampax and the list goes on and on.... All P&G brands

Sorry but good as I think the Virgin brand is, it doesn't even appear in the top 100 brands listing globally.

Coca Cola is by far and wide the biggest brand name on the planet as there are very few (if any) countries where it is not sold.

Jon B

Jon - those brands you've listed may be widely recognised, but P&G itself isn't a strong brand.

VS.

[Decker]

Yes but Jon said P&G have numerous brands - not are. P&G may not be well branded (though to be honest I'd easily recognise their Satanist logo ) but their brands are.

Originally posted by VS045
Jon - those brands you've listed may be widely recognised, but P&G itself isn't a strong brand.

VS.

VS - OK lets clarify my points and not get hung up on what P&G or Unilever manufacture.....

The facts however are - P&G isn't a brand but a manufacturer of numerous brands. The original statement was about 'brand power'.

Both Duracell and Gillette (manufactured by Procter & Gamble) however are BIGGER brand names globally than Virgin and both appear in the top 100 brands list. That's not my opinion but a fact as based upon recognised market data studies which are published annually by Interbrand and Business Week and used by the markets to ascertain values - use Google and do a search

The top 10 brands globally for 2006 were
1) Coca Cola
2) Microsoft
3) IBM
4) GE
5) Intel
6) Nokia
7) Disney
8) McDonalds
9) Toyota
10) Marlboro

When Virgin get into the top 100 recognised brands worldwide then they will be classed a major brand name. I can't ever foresee a day however that they will be bigger as a brand or have more brand power than Coca Cola

That is not to say that Virgin are a weak brand, they actually have a strong 'branding image'. It's just not as big as many others in the market.

Now lets talk about something more interesting like whoÕd win in a fist fight between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck

I'd take Bugs to win in 6 rounds by a KO

Jon B

OK, back on topic;)

Although I'm not the greatest admirer of SRB, I do think that he excels at creating the right image and publicity for himself and brand.
Take, for example, this $25M prize to invent a way to combat climate change. It is unlikely that anyone will win IMO, but SRB still comes out looking very eco-friendly. If someone does invent a way, SRB still comes out as an eco-saint - Reversal of Climate Change (sponsored by Virgin;))

VS.

Read his autobiography before you make up you mind to the OP question. It's not really his cleverness that's the issue, it's his resolve.