Virgin – Brand Reputation – Nicolette's Blog

Virgin Group is a family owned growth capital investor, with a globally recognised and respected brand.

The investment team focuses on their core customer sectors of

Travel & Leisure
Telecoms & Media
Music & Entertainment
Financial Services
Health & Wellness

Virgin Group aims to deliver long term capital appreciation through investment in these 5 sectors. Virgin Group actively seeks need investment opportunities and to partner with like-minded investors.

These are the three ways in which the Virgin Group provides value to their investments:

Sector expertise and track record across their 5 core sectors
Experience and understanding of consumer behaviour, brands and marketing
Strong network of investors, management teams and alumni

Virgin Group is also an active technology-focused venture investor with a portfolio of over 35 companies spanning the consumer internet, fintech and sharing economy sectors.

The Virgin Group has identified all the brands within the organisation and have segmented it, into the 5 core sectors allowing them to be more focused on what the brand values and what it is they want to accomplish through their brand portfolio. They have the same graphics throughout their portfolio, with the Virgin Logo, making this easily recognised by their consumers. They have also clearly identified their brand scope as highlighted in the section above. This shows me that Virgin Group clearly understands the importance of a brand portfolio, and understands how to maintain the brand portfolio as well as bring it to life in their every day business objectives and they are effective at managing their brand portfolio.

Virgin Group Brands

In an age where consumers expect brands to be transparent in the ways they run their businesses and consumers are so involved in making or breaking a brands reputation, The Virgin Group and more specifically Sir Richard Branson understands this. While doing my research for this blog post, I came across this on their website, www.virgin.com when trying to find out what the brand stands for:

“Over five decades, the Virgin name and logo has become renowned for providing a unique and exceptional customer experience. Whether in banking, travel, entertainment, health and fitness or communications the Virgin Brand has become one of the most desirable brands in the world. The Brand’s backbone is its values; providing heartfelt service, being delightfully surprising, red hot, and straight up while maintaining an insatiable curiosity and creating smart disruption.”
Virgin Group

That statement alone speaks wonders about the brand and what it is they stand for and want to achieve, providing heartfelt service is one of the values that brand aims to achieve, they do this throughout all their efforts in each of the different brands.

An example of brands transparency and handling a crisis situation was shown with the Virgin Galactic test flight disaster in 2014. Sir Richard Branson was quick to post a tweet to the public and then go to the site of the crash and speak to the media as well as the public and vowing to find out what went wrong to ensure that a repeat of the incident never happens again. With such a huge tragedy, Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin Brand showed accountability, transparency and strong leadership.

The Virgin Group understands the value of their customers, however, more importantly they understand the value of their staff. As we have all discovered, a happy and positive employee will create a happy and positive customer experience. In a brand that is built and truly believes in providing heartfelt service, they take the extra steps to ensure their employees are happy as well. The customer plays a huge role in the reputation of any brand and nurturing that relationship is vital to the success of the business flourishing.

In Conclusion, Sir Richard Branson has definitely spent a lot of time to understand his target market and to make sure he engages with his customers on every way possible, he is very active on his own personal level on Social Media as well as public engagements with his consumers. This definitely has given the public a sense of trust with Sir Richard Branson, they feel as if he is transparent in his communications. The brand has a very large detailed portfolio and is definitely sustainable as long as the focus remains on their 5 core customer sectors and continue to provide value. I believe the brand should continue to ensure the values of the brand are firmly embedded within the corporate structure and is supported on every level to ensure they continue to deliver on their brand promise and that the brand promise continues and lives beyond its founder.