1990/99 Virgin Atlantic vs British Airways
Mark Borkowski, Founder, Borkowski PR agency
Judge's comment
"David vs Goliath battle between Virgin Atlantic and British Airways in the early 90s exposed BA’s unethical practices and helped Virgin capture the public’s imagination.
Richard Branson’s witty and provocative campaign included dressing as a pirate for the launch of Virgin’s transatlantic flights from Heathrow. The real genius was exposing BA’s “dirty tricks” campaign (stealing Virgin’s passengers and sabotaging bookings) with a historic lawsuit. When BA settled, Branson distributed the damages to Virgin staff as a ‘Christmas Bonus’. Branson turned the screw on his rivals with stunts including “BA can’t get it up” about their failure to launch the London Eye. The campaign generated massive publicity for Virgin Atlantic, damaged its main rival’s reputation and demonstrated the power of bold creativity to challenge established players."
Public Relations Work
Objectives: Challenge the dominance of British Airways and promote Virgin Atlantic
Target Audience: Prospective travellers. The secondary audience was the wider public.
Key messages: British Airways is both unethical and ineffective. Virgin Atlantic is a better and a more attractive customer-focused alternative.
Strategies and Tactics: Provocative marketing campaigns, high-profile lawsuits exposing BA’s unethical behaviour, numerous stunts using Richard Branson’s personal brand as a pillar. Communication was centred around a David vs Goliath framing of the battle, with the intention of capturing the public’s tendency of rooting for the underdog.
Tools and Channels: Mainstream media to ensure maximum coverage of Virgin Atlantic’s actions, the court system to challenge BA’s behaviour, provocative publicity stunts (such as the famous “BA don’t give a Shiatsu” billboard). Virgin also maintained strong relationships with journalists and media outlets to ensure the success of their campaign.
Implementation: PR stunts included Richard Branson commissioning a blimp with the inscription “BA CAN’T GET IT UP!!” over the London Eye as soon as he learnt that BA could not complete its erection for technical reasons despite massive press presence for the occasion. The “Dirty Tricks” lawsuit exposed BA representatives for, among other things, hacking Virgin’s computer systems to steal information on Virgin’s flights and calling up Virgin customers pretending to be Virgin representatives and suggesting they switch their flights to BA for technical reasons. The pay-out following the Dirty Tricks lawsuit was distributed by Branson among Virgin staff and was known as the “BA Bonus”.
Results: Massive positive publicity for Virgin Atlantic and negative publicity for British Airways.
Sources:
Twitter
The Guardian
Ad Brands
Wikiwand
David Merland
Wikiwand
The Guardian
Aviation source news
Simple flying
The Irish Times