One afternoon in NYC
On my trip to NYC to celebrate Virgin Atlantic’s 25th birthday, I had a few media appointments that allowed me to share my thoughts on the Virgin brand and our businesses and announce a bit of exciting rock-n-roll news. Here’s a snapshot of an afternoon in the Big Apple.
My first visit was with CNN American Morning’s John Roberts, an award winning anchor and genuinely nice guy, with stunning fashion sensibility (ok, we wore identical outfits). We chatted about the Carbon War Room, Virgin Atlantic, space travel, and music. Here’s his studio:
My next appointment was to record a video interview with BusinessWeek for its newly designed homepage. Writer Stacy Perman had organised an informal meet and greet with a few writers and editors but she sent me into a large formal conference room with 30 reporters, all poised with pens and notepads, sat at the ready to fire away questions!
They turned out to be a very nice bunch that asked about some of my favourite things: airlines, space travel, and the brand. One writer asked about bringing the Virgin brand to the US from the UK. Just as the brand started in the UK as the David to many Goliaths in aviation, mobile telephony, and financial services, the Virgin companies in the US are Davids offering a fresh value-for-money alternative to the bigger, bloated, legacy institutions. I think that we stay fresh because we’re constantly growing and trying new ventures. Virgin is now a group of established businesses but one with an eye to invest in new companies, offering consumers a better deal and great customer service. When they mature, we sometimes sell our shares and plough that money right back into new ventures and markets, growing new Davids every day.
Well, enough business talk, and onto the rock and roll bit. We then raced to 30 Rock for NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. A few years back, Jimmy married his wife on Necker… and regrettably I was not there for what sounded like a lovely celebration. Jimmy has got boundless energy, effortless charm, and radical ideas on saving the planet via cow methane reduction.
If you’re in the US you can view the whole episode online.
Here I am signing Jimmy’s guest book and ?uestlove’s drumsticks and mucking it up with Jimmy before the show:
The most exciting thing Jimmy and I did together was announce that this summer’s Virgin Mobile Festival in the US (at Merriweather Post Pavilion near Washington, DC) is going to be FREE. At a time when so many people are faced with economic hardship, it seems a brilliant idea to throw a free party for 35,000 people to, if for just one day, set aside troubles and enjoy life and music and have fun – on us.
Other Virgin companies are getting into the free spirit: Virgin America is donating a plane of free flights from LA to DC so that west coast festival-goers can also enjoy FREEFEST. I hope that the extra cash in people’s pockets will go towards donations for those who are less fortunate, such as homeless youth. Everyone can join in the spirit of generosity by texting “FREEFEST” to 20222 to donate US$5 to our homeless youth charity partners. Looking forward to having a pint with everyone on Sunday August 30. You can read more about it over on our Virgin music blog.
Digg This StoryVirgin Atlantic’s 25th Birthday Celebrations at London Heathrow
Virgin Atlantic is 25 years old this week and we have recreated the very first flight to New York that departed on 22 June 1984. We departed Heathrow Airport on Tuesday aboard the appropriately named Boeing 747-400 ‘Birthday Girl’. Kate Moss came along to personally wish us a happy birthday and I was joined by onboard by frequent travellers and lots of special guests including Vivienne Westwood, Ian Botham and Kevin Pietersen.
Our Flight Service Manager who actually operated the very first Virgin Atlantic flight in 1984 was Chris Morley. Chris has been with Virgin Atlantic for 25 years and led the crew across the Atlantic on Tuesday’s anniversary flight.
I am so proud of what we have achieved in the last 25 years. It is a tribute to the staff of Virgin Atlantic that we are in the leading position we are in today. It seems a long time ago that we took that first flight in 1984 with one leased plane, and so much has been achieved since then. We would like to thank the millions of travellers that have put their faith in us and the thousands of staff who have created such a great airline.
I’m pleased to announce that we’re ordering $2.1 billion worth of new planes - 10 Airbus A330 300 aircraft. So it’s just the first stage of Virgin Atlantic’s second 25 years.
Last night we celebrated the 25th birthday in downtown Manhattan with a few more friends, including Samuel L Jackson & Whoopi Goldberg. It has been a great couple of days!
PitchTV: Ask Gary Vaynerchuk anything
I’m Gary Vaynerchuk and I’m honoured to be taking part in the Richard Branson blog, so hit me with your questions on entrepreneurship. Just submit your question by adding a comment to this post and l’ll answer some of the best questions on film as part of Richard’s next PitchTV show on Virgin Atlantic.
- Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion on amazon.com
- Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion on Facebook
Business Stripped Bare Audiobook
Read by Richard himself, Business Stripped Bare is now available as an audiobook. Richard took some time to record the secrets of his success from Necker Island.
In this extract you’ll hear Richard’s personal ethos on how a business works, and what to expect from the rest of the biggest book of the year. Extract from Business Stripped Bare
Download your copy from itunes or buy from rbooks.
Business Stripped Bare Audiobook
Sign up and save Sydney FBi!
I’ve been receiving lots of requests from the supporters of Sydney FBi 94.5FM to help save their community radio station which is in financial trouble in this recession. They’ve set a goal to raise one million Australian dollars.
I’d like to congratulate FBi radio for running a truly inventive and original ‘Ask Richard Campaign’. I only realised the full weight of their brilliant campaign when a charming, determined and soaking wet young woman, Georgia, swam two and a half miles from a neighbouring island here in the Caribbean to tell me more about FBi’s plight. Naturally I invited her to stay for dinner and for the night here on Necker with my family – we were right in the middle of dinner anyway!
I’ve been amazed by the effort FBi’s supporters have gone to. The station clearly inspires great passion from its listeners and it’s worth saving. I’ll do my bit by providing some prizes, but really it’s up to FBi’s listeners to show they want the station to survive. So I say ‘Sign up and Save FBi!’ All you have to do is and pledge from $4 a month to go towards ongoing operational costs of the community station. I’ve signed up and pledged so it’s over to you…
I’m also thrilled to be able to offer the station the support of the Virgin Group. We are providing two tickets to the UK flying Virgin Atlantic and two tickets to the upcoming V Festival in the UK, as well as two business class tickets to LA with V Australia to use as prizes to encourage FBi’s listeners to become supporters and get behind the Save FBi campaign. It’s really up to the listeners to save the station now.
I’ve also put FBi in touch with my team at Virgin Management to help consult on future fundraising and sponsorship opportunities, to help the station raise and beat their $1 million target.
The Independent interview
Here’s an interview I did recently with Simon Calder from The Independent newspaper in the UK to discuss Virgin Atlantic’s 25 year history. Follow the link to read the interview or listen to the podcast…
PitchTV: Vote for your favourite video pitch
Voting is now open for the third round of PitchTV. It’s up to you to decide which five video pitches will make it in to August’s episode of Richard Branson’s PitchTV which will premiere on board Virgin Atlantic planes and then be shown here online.
So which of the latest batch of pitches do you think deserves exposure to the top business professionals who fly with Virgin Atlantic every day? Maybe some of those business people could help make the best of these ideas a reality…
Before casting your vote, take another look at the contending video pitches:
- AskaTradie
- iSyndica
- The Green Pizza Box
- Communiclique
- Giant Leap
- Prefio
- Be In Space
- Career Communique Radio
- companycashback.com
- cmypitch.com
When you’ve made your choice - go and cast your vote.
…and may the best pitches win!
Don’t worry if you haven’t yet submitted your own video pitch - we’ll be carrying on with the show over the course of the whole year so you can pitch any time. Once a month we’ll put the latest batch to the vote.
For more information and to find out how to submit your own video pitch, see Richard’s post here: Introducing PitchTV.
Check back soon for more video pitches…
PitchTV: cmypitch.com
Here’s the final PitchTV video for your consideration this month: cmypitch.com helps UK entrepreneurs succeed - something which we’re quite interested in here at Virgin. Do you think this video pitch is good enough to make it in to Richard’s PitchTV show onboard Virgin Atlantic planes?
Check back in the next day or so and we’ll kick off the next rounding of voting for this latest batch of video pitches.
For more information and to find out how to submit your own video pitch, see Richard’s post here: Introducing PitchTV.
Save our rainforests
A few weeks ago I filmed this video in support of Prince Charles’ campaign to save the world’s rainforests.
The Prince has come up with a clever campaign built around a frog - which the Prince, his sons, Harrison Ford, Pele and Daniel Craig among others, have all been filmed with.
You can watch my film here: Sign up against deforestation
We all believe that more must be done to save the Rainforests for our children and the next generation. The forests are the “heart and lungs” of the world and are one of the best ways of removing carbon dioxide and combating climate change.
We are calling on the world’s leaders to ensure that deforestation and the preservation of the rainforests are properly discussed at the Copenhagen summit at the end of the year.
Watch the video and please sign up to the Prince’s campaign at rainforestsos.org.
Sign up against deforestation…
Sign up against deforestation at rainforestsos.org
