When Richard Branson comes to town, every second counts.
Richard Branson speaks to Virgin Mobile’s Joseph Ottorino on stage at the Virgin Mobile Mod Club in Toronto.
On Monday, the Virgin Group founder rolled into Toronto for a whirlwind of interviews and promotions in support of Virgin Mobile Re*Generation, the brand’s Canadian charity initiative aiding at-risk and homeless youth.
In total, he was in Toronto for just five hours, forcing the brand’s Canadian PR and marketing team to pack his schedule with marketable moments to make the most of Virgin’s global in-house celebrity.
The tight window included a press conference, plus interviews for print, online, broadcast and radio, and a Branson-hosted concert featuring the Hamilton, Ontario-based band Arkells.
The brand had been planning for the one-day blitz since January, according to Joseph Ottorino, managing director of Virgin Mobile Canada. It set up a contest around the event, awarding 50 customers tickets to the concert and sent out invites to bloggers and influencers to round out its media outreach.
To further the social reach of the event, Virgin is cutting a video of the concert as part of its “Live Like a Member” web series. It also had its social team on-hand during the event, creating real-time content for its Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts, and launched a redesigned version the Re*Generation microsite to coincide with the show.
At the event, Branson announced that the Re*Generation program will be working with CivicAction and Social Capital Partners to help homeless young Canadians find and keep jobs. More specifically, he said Virgin Mobile is committed to helping 450 young people find jobs in Canada in the next three years. Virgin is also partnering with Samsung on the initiative, donating a portion of the proceeds from Samsung phones sold through Virgin Mobile ($15 from the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Samsung Galaxy Alpha, $10 from the Samsung Galaxy S4 $5 from the Samsung Galaxy S3) to the Re*Generation program.
Ottorino explained Branson identified at-risk and homeless youth as an issue in Canada on a previous visit and was the inspiration for the brand to get involved. As Branson spends more time on charity, Ottorino said Virgin and its sub-brands have followed suit globally, building it into the DNA of the brand.
The cult of personality that surrounds Branson (whom Ottorino says spends upwards of 90% of his time on Virgin’s “business as a force for good” programs) has undoubtedly helped draw attention to both the brand and it’s charity initiatives, too, whether in London where it’s headquartered or on Canadian soil.
“When we spend time on charity, we’re living true to what the brand and its founder stands for,” Ottorino said. “There’s a big correlation between Richard Branson’s persona – the spectacle, grabbing attention, having fun, screw business-as-usual and using business as a force for good – and the brand.
“The brand has taken on that persona as well.”
