Brand Virgin

Virgin Atlantic, which today operates a daily flight to Sydney via Hong Kong, was launched in 1984. To set itself apart from the established carriers, in particular home town rival British Airways, it made a great play on the strengths of the Virgin brand, at that time mainly associated with Bran-son’s Virgin Music, as the cheeky upstart and champion of the travelling public.

“I think the whole [essence] of Virgin Atlantic is that we weren’t a historical car-rier,” explained Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway in an interview with Australian Aviation. “We were never a government airline that became privatised and was gifted all the routes and facilities that comes with that. ” Instead, said the Virgin Atlantic boss in Sydney recently, “We’ve always had to set our stall out very distinctively and it’s been about offering a very different product and a very different service. And that’s what the brand has come to stand for and I think this is as important today as it was [in 1984]”.

Today, Virgin Atlantic is again in the process of reinvigorating and reinforc-ing the key elements of its brand, recently launching a new livery and rolling out a sassy television advertising campaign featuring glamorous cabin crew and pilots with visuals that wouldn’t be out of place in a James Bond film’s opening sequence, but with a tongue-in-cheek, self deprecat-ing ending – ‘Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t’. Set to the pop rock band Muse’s song Feeling Good, the ad is also a popular YouTube hit, and has been supported by print, outdoor and online advertising.

Said Paul Dickinson, director of sales and marketing for Virgin Atlantic, at the time of the campaign’s release last October: “People always tell us that there is some-thing special and different about travelling with Virgin Atlantic and this campaign was designed to illustrate that certain magic ingredient that sets us apart from the competition. ” The timing of the rebranding is co-incident with Virgin Blue CEO John Borghetti’s own rebranding effort, but it is a campaign that the fellow Virgin branded airline, despite product differences and dif-ferent markets, will have watched closely.

“Where this new identity and livery comes from is that the whole industry has come out of a very bruising time. We made a lot of changes to the company and we just wanted to really look at how we’re going to emerge from this and whether we’re still going to be a cool brand for the world that’s now emerging,” Ridgway explained.

“And we hadn’t changed our look and feel for quite a few years – not that long as compared to many, but still in our world it was seven or eight years old. And stuff starts to fragment and get a bit messy and we were also looking for some efficiency. ” Virgin Atlantic launched its new branding and livery in June 2010, and it is being progressively applied to the air-line’s 38 strong aircraft fleet, signage and advertising. The new livery introduces a new custom font for the Virgin Atlantic name which is featured along the length of the fuselage. Other features include red winglets, a redesign of the Union Jack carrying ‘Scarlet Lady’, and the Virgin logo in purple on the undersides to more easily identify the aircraft from the ground.

“We have a very strong consumer franchise and they like to see us moving forward all the time and doing things a bit differently, remaining fresh. ” “We just went right back to basics and looked at what do we need to do to really sharpen up the whole thing, make it just look fresher and just more edgy in this world,” said Ridgway. “And so we’ve now gone global with all our marketing commu-nications, we’ve invested in really upgrading a lot of the look and feel of our images and photography. Out of that comes the aircraft livery. We knew we had a whole fleet of aircraft coming from 2011 and also we had a lot of aircraft due for repaints – and we’ve led the way with all the new paint technol-ogy, all the metallic paints and so on, and that technology has changed even since we first did it. It was just a way that we could make the aircraft look even sharper. After all, they’re the most fantastic billboard for your brand, aren’t they?” Those advances in aircraft paint technol-ogy have played a key part in the rebrand-ing. “It’s been quite amazing what’s hap-pened to aircraft paints. We will probably get nine to 11 years’ life out of these new paints and liveries, whereas in the old days you were lucky if you ended up looking smart after about four.

“We have a very strong consumer franchise and they like to see us moving forward all the time and doing things a bit differently, remaining fresh.”

“I think when you look at print, when you look at advertising, when you work on TV, when you look at how the aircraft’s going to look and airport signage, it’s just about keeping the brand on message. ” Continued Ridgway, “it’s just one part of keeping ahead of the game. And we have a very strong consumer franchise and they like to see us moving forward all the time and doing things a bit differently, remain-ing fresh and I think it does exactly that. And we’ve got this great brand rebuild that kind of puts us now up against where we always think we’ve been with the cool brands.

“Lots of other people had copied our previous livery and it was a kind of [a case of] lean forward, go faster. And we had bus and coach companies copying it in England so we thought, time to move on. ” That need to move on seems to be re-flected in VB’s efforts to rebrand as well.

“It feels to me that it is kind of stuck and needs a kick up the arse,” designer Hans Hulsbosch said of the Virgin Blue brand in a recent interview. Hulsbosch’s design agency has worked with major Australian companies, including Qantas, to develop brand identities and logos, and has been engaged by John Borghetti to redevelop the Virgin Blue brand.

“They are daring, they are anti-establish-ment, they are fun and young. None of that will change,” Hulsbosch said of the Virgin brand in a recent interview. “If anything, we will enhance it. ” While Hulsbosch has formal responsibil-ity for redeveloping the Virgin Blue brand, Virgin Atlantic has kept its Australian cousin informed of its own rebranding.

“He [Borghetti] knows that we’ve been around a long time and we’ve developed and changed our image through all that time. So I’ve shared with him where we’re going with the kind of change and what we want to do. . . I think he understands and he gets it, he understands the importance of brands. ” Continued Ridgway of his Australian counterpart, “I think in some ways he also understands the neutrality of the brand. I think the great thing about Virgin Atlan-tic is that although we’re a British airline, we’re kind of like not a British airline and we’re able to anchor ourselves kind of mid- Atlantic or mid-Asia or whatever, and that gives great flexibility. And that manifests itself through in the product as well. ” As well as the Virgin brand, the two airlines share a common key shareholder in Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which holds 51 per cent of Virgin Atlantic and 25 per cent of Virgin Blue. And while Virgin Blue’s alliance focus of late has been on its arrangements with Etihad, Delta and Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Blue do have a codeshare and frequent flyer partnership agreement.

“We’ve extended quite a lot in the last two years our relationship with [Virgin Blue],” Ridgway said, noting that in the past cooperation with Virgin Blue had been limited by Virgin Blue’s reservation system.

“So as that changes, that certainly im-proves and we’ve extended the codeshare, we’ve done all the frequent flyer reciprocity tie-ups – we’re working with them on a kind of joint Virgin terminal in LA because we all [including Virgin America] fly into pretty much the same terminals. ” So far though Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Blue’s codesharing is limited to Virgin Atlantic codesharing on certain Virgin Blue flights into Sydney to connect with its Sydney-Hong Kong-London flights. The two Virgins do interline and sell flights from Sydney and London via Los Angeles on a common ticket, but with a consider-able transit time in LA.

Interestingly, despite the similarities in three class products between Virgin Atlantic and VB’s V Australia, Ridgway did not say if there were any plans for the two to codeshare on Virgin Atlantic’s Sydney- London flights.

That may come in time, especially as Virgin Atlantic’s Sydney-Hong Kong sector would give V Australia an entree into the Asia market, but instead Virgin Blue has clearly focused on its arrangement with Etihad, which with its Abu Dhabi hub gives one stop access to multiple key European centres.

Still, the three Virgin branded airline groups do talk regularly.

“The ownership structures are very dif-ferent, but clearly as long as we’re comply-ing with any competition rules about what we can and can’t talk about [we do talk together], but [more] in terms of consumer propositions and what the brand means and how it’s understood,” Ridgway said.

“They’re good conversations in terms of what ideas are there, what things can we look at, what are the learnings, [but] we’re pretty careful not to cross any boundaries that we’re not supposed to, which is fine. We’re in different markets, by and large. ” One example of cooperation Ridgway could point to was Virgin Atlantic’s assist-ance in helping Virgin Blue develop the product offering for V Australia.

“If you look at V Australia in terms of how it went to market with its products and its product suite, there’s lots of crosso-vers there with Virgin Atlantic. We’ve had lots of experience and learnings in things like inflight entertainment, which is a com-plete bloody minefield, and we were able to cope with that. They made their own decisions, it was their decision whether to have first class or not have first class and the kind of full service business class. [But] I think you can absolutely see the comparisons there, but again it’s a separate company. ” One area where Virgin Atlantic can’t help Virgin Blue is in securing the use of the Virgin name for VB’s international services. Part of the deal that saw Singapore Airlines buy its 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic in March 2000 was a restriction on any other entity using the Virgin name on international flights.

“They have it [the Virgin name] in their domestic licence and therefore they’re free to use that. [But] there never was a licence for international, which is why they’ve got V Australia, and ultimately that’s the shareholders’ decision. It’s not something directly within my remit and that will be decided by the shareholders. ” While Virgin Atlantic and V Australia can’t share the Virgin name, they do share similar three class products, which Ridgway says is a key differentiator between airlines.

“We buy exactly the same planes as Qan-tas and everybody else, we can only go to Airbus and Boeing,” Ridgway said. “We fly them in and out of the same pretty ghastly airports, in some cases, and we fly them under the same very strict rules and regula-tions. And yet if you go and talk to people in the street, we are known for doing differ-ent things and doing different things inside our aluminium tubes.

“I think that’s what I find exciting about brands, about competition and competing. I think that’s the benefit consumers get, they get that choice and they get that differ-ence. And because we’ve had to overcome the disadvantages of history, we’ve prob-ably pushed that to more extremes than anybody. ” Virgin Atlantic’s brand is known for its innovation in inflight product and the pas-senger experience, even when products that the airline pioneered, from its ‘Upper Class’ lie-flat sleeper seats to premium economy and inseat video in economy, have been widely adopted by almost every other long haul airline.

“We have a lot more ideas up our sleeve than we can probably ever implement, and I think the key for us is the way we put it together with the people. So it’s that chem-istry of our people [providing] the inflight service and that’s much harder to copy. Anyone could copy seats and stuff like that, but actually how you put all those things together and how you build your image around it, it’s that final piece that does it. ” Having a coherent product strategy across different cabin classes is also impor-tant, Ridgway explained.

“I think Virgin Atlantic has been uniquely good at having a very high-end premium product, our big kind of ‘halo’ product in Upper Class, which is very upmarket and very top end, and we’re at the same time having great resonance in the leisure markets and in the economy markets. So people seem to turn right and left on our planes very well and it all sticks together, it’s extremely coherent how it all joins up, whereas a lot of times airlines are pushing their premium products very hard and are a little bit apologetic about what goes on in the back. ” Clearly, what goes on down the back is important when many of Virgin Atlantic’s key routes are leisure markets “A big chunk of our business model is that we have this big leisure operation in the UK. We’re the number one leisure operator to places like Florida and the Car-ibbean and Las Vegas. That’s a real success and it’s still one brand, still operating under one brand and one product suite. ” Interestingly, given the importance of Upper Class to the Virgin Atlantic brand, the airline’s next aircraft it will take deliv-ery of – the first of 10 A330-300s on order, with first deliveries in 2011 – won’t feature its signature product.

“We want to fit the next generation Up-per Class seats and that won’t be available until the end of next year. We only need it for Heathrow so we’ll put those aircraft into a leisure configuration and then, if necessary, fit them [with Upper Class] later. But they’ll go on Gatwick and Manchester in a high density leisure configuration. ” Those A330-300 deliveries give the airline flexibility in terms of replacing exist-ing aircraft in its fleet, or providing capacity for growth, depending on how economic conditions develop.

“Essentially they’re there partly for growth and partly for replacement, but we can probably turn the dial according to how we’re seeing the recovery going. And we’re going to use them both for leisure in a two class configuration and then probably at the end of 2011 start delivering them into Heathrow in our normal configuration with the new Upper Class. ” Of current conditions Ridgway said the outlook has improved.

“Things have turned around and picked up dramatically. We made a lot of changes last year [in 2009] in response to the market. We reduced our frequencies, we came off some markets. We even took some planes out of the system for a while and they’re all back now. And I think taking that capacity out was the right thing to do. ” After experiencing “brutal” conditions in Europe (the airline made a pretax operat-ing loss of £132m, on revenues down nearly nine per cent to £2. 4bn for its 2009-10 financial year), the outlook is good.

“We have seen a phenomenal bounce, you’ve really got to go back and look at the 2008 numbers to compare them. We’re ahead of those numbers in terms of our revenues and our yields in what is after all a small business. So at the moment we are cautiously optimistic. ” Within its network, Ridgway said the airline’s Sydney flights have been perform-ing well.

“There are a phenomenal number of ways of getting out of Australia and into Europe, particularly into London. But we’ve got about only five per cent of the capacity in the market and we’ve got about seven per cent market share. And it exactly fits our formula of providing that high quality single daily service, that’s pretty much our formula. We want to grow our network in terms of choice of destinations and the secret of that in the business markets is to get that daily service. ” Other Australian ports could be on the agenda when the airline begins to take delivery of the 15 Boeing 787-9s it has on order, although Ridgway didn’t comment directly on reports that Perth and Mel-bourne were on his airline’s radar.

“Obviously the 787’s very frustrating because it’s been delayed at least three years now and we believe it will be an aircraft that will work extremely well in our network. And it does offer the chance to both open new destinations effectively and, if necessary, to extend frequencies. But unfortunately that’s kind of put back now to probably 2014. ” The other piece of the Virgin Atlan-tic fleet puzzle is its order for six Airbus A380s, and if any airline was going to take advantage of the A380’s floor space for product innovation, it would have to be Virgin Atlantic.

“Yes, absolutely, and I think what we’ve come up with was really good,” observed Ridgway, but, “No, no hints, can’t give away the trade secrets! But at the end of the day there’s also an element of economics where aircraft are about moving people. . . , so I think that what we’ve always prided ourselves on is about being smart, about how you maximise the revenue take on the aircraft but, at the same time, making it a nice experience to fly on. ” Indeed, Virgin Atlantic has got its own aircraft seat design company. “We’ve got a pretty big design department that does all our stuff, both the ground development and in the air. And all that stuff ’s very subtle. It’s down to colours and treatments and lighting systems, the whole cabin ambience.

“It always amazes me that even today we can go on two different aircraft and some-times they’re both brand new and one’s like stepping into the ’70s and the other’s like stepping into 2010. That’s where we would always try and be out there and having fun. It’s hard because it’s clearly constrained by what you can do and what the manufactur-ers are comfortable doing, but we definitely push the [boundaries]. . . I mean, mood lighting would not exist on aircraft without Virgin Atlantic. Before it was just throw the switch, wasn’t it? So we’ve done lots of little things. ” Less subtle is the airline’s still major shareholder and president, Sir Richard Branson. Branson leaves the day-to-day running of the airline to Ridgway and his team, but is still the airline’s not so secret weapon.

“We still roll him out for the launch days and holidays and he’s great in the political spats and the political battles, which seem to dominate this industry, and that’s where he’s best deployed. ” After more than a quarter of a century Branson remains the figurehead for and personification of the Virgin Atlantic brand.

“I think the great thing is we’ve got a brand with personality and we’ve got a guy who set it up with personality, and that does inherently make it easier. And that was one reason actually, in a way, for the new identity, or the change in identity, just to be very strong and proud of Virgin Atlantic, because it can surpass him. He’s very much part of it, identified with it, but it’s not critically dependent on him. ” It is a strong position for the brand to be in.