Branson Born: Future Virgin Empire Builder Arrives

Richard Branson built the Virgin brand from a student magazine into a conglomerate spanning airlines, music, telecommunications, and space tourism. He started Virgin as a mail-order record business in 1970, operating out of the crypt of a church in London, selling records at prices that undercut the established shops. The first Virgin Records store opened on Oxford Street in 1971, and by 1973 he had signed Mike Oldfield, whose Tubular Bells became one of the best-selling instrumental albums in history. Virgin Records went on to sign the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones, and Janet Jackson before Branson sold the label to EMI for nearly a billion dollars in 1992. He poured the money into Virgin Atlantic, the airline he had founded in 1984 to challenge British Airways' transatlantic monopoly. BA fought back with a dirty tricks campaign that included accessing Virgin's computer systems and poaching passengers, eventually losing a libel suit and paying damages. Branson's willingness to challenge entrenched monopolies became his defining business strategy, applied across mobile phones, financial services, trains, and fitness clubs. Virgin Galactic's successful suborbital flights made him one of the first private citizens to reach space aboard his own vehicle in July 2021, beating Jeff Bezos by nine days. His ventures have not all succeeded. Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, and Virgin Brides all failed. But the brand itself survived every stumble, sustained by Branson's personal charisma and a marketing philosophy built on positioning Virgin as the plucky challenger to complacent incumbents.