Defining Virgin territory

Sometimes you don't need to be a marketing guru to predict brand moves. So when I was confidently talking to my friend some weeks back that the Virgin Group would somehow manage to enter into the Mobile & VAS space in India (which was just announced), I had very little doubt and more conviction.

The Virgin brand
It's simple. Virgin is one of the smartest, savviest and most agile brands around the world, cutting through insane number of businesses and owning more than 300 brands. They believe in the potential of a market and get there eventually. From whatever I've observed about them (brand Virgin, Sir Richard Branson and the whole group), I'd say they have a simple credo: Any space is virgin (and they capitalize on it, pardon the pun!) if you really listen to customer needs, pain poins and create a vibrant brand to market the solution and create value for the customer even in a fiercely competitive environment. (And create passionate evangelists like me who don't get paid jack shit for talking about them!)

In fact I'm a big fan of Virgin and Branson's way of doing business - so I'm only too happy to see them spread across sectors in India. In case you haven't caught the drift, here's a quick summary of their India presence (to the best of my knowledge).

• Virgin Atlantic (airline) - connects Mumbai and Delhi to London
• Virgin Comics (comics) - Branson + Shekhar Kapur + Gotham Chopra + Sharad Devarajan
• Fever 104 FM (radio) - A joint venture between Virgin Radio and Hindustan Times
• The Mobile Store (retail) - Joint venture with Essar Group
• Virgin Mobile (mobile) - Proposed 50:50 venture with Tata Teleservices
• Virgin Galactic (space travel!) - A collaboration with Deluxe Travel and GD Goenka World Travel [Updated as of 16 Oct, 2007]

... and the list will go on. What I'm willing to put my pennies on? Virgin Hot Air Balloons! Please, oh please get them to locales like Ladakh/Kerala/Munnar or something! More about Virgin here.