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Simon Bradley
Vice President of Marketing, Americas, Virgin Atlantic Airways
Ben Somerset-How
Client Director Creativebrief
creativebrief talks to Simon Bradley, Vice President of Marketing, Americas - Virgin Atlantic Airways.
Simon leads the development and implementation of the marketing strategy to meet business objectives and revenue goals across 12 markets in N.America as well as contributing to the global strategy for the airline.
He has held global marketing positions in Scandinavia and Latin America, as well as the US, Canada and the UK. Prior to his role at Virgin Atlantic, he worked for VisitBritain leading the Americas team out of New York. Before moving stateside, Simon worked out of Stockholm and London with VisitBritain and his career has also included roles with South West Tourism and the National Marine Aquarium.
creativebrief: As Vice President of Marketing, N.America at Virgin Atlantic what is your primary focus?
Simon Bradley: We’re really focused on building our brand across our twelve US gateways and creating deeper relationships with our customers there. We now also have an exciting new partnership with Delta which opens up tremendous opportunities for both airlines to work together to offer more destinations, reach more customers, and drive even greater brand engagement.
creativebrief: What is the biggest issue for your brand today and how are you addressing it?
Simon Bradley: It’s a really exciting time for the Virgin Atlantic brand right now. Last year we did a lot of work around how we could evolve the brand and we launched our new platform – Let it Fly. It really moves the brand forward with a more customer focused approach, which we are now busy rolling out across all of our markets
creativebrief: Is there a broader initiative that you are driving for the brand outside of the day-to-day?
Simon Bradley: More broadly, we are also working closely with Delta to communicate our unique partnership. Here our focus is not about merging two brands together but creating platforms that enable us to talk about two of the strongest brands in the airline industry and how they make our respective experiences for our customer even better!
creativebrief: What attributes do you think are required for success as a marketer today?
Simon Bradley: I’m a great believer in creativity at all levels of a marketing organisation. For me that’s about ideas coming from all parts of the organisation and a culture of innovation. Data science and analytics are re-shaping the marketing discipline, so today’s marketers need to be comfortable with handling data and embedding it in their strategies.
creativebrief: What work are you most proud of over the course of your career?
Simon Bradley: There are lots of campaigns and executions I can think of but I’m most proud of the people I have got to work with over the years and the great marketing we have produced together. After nearly 5 years at Virgin Atlantic, I’m also still incredibly proud every time I experience our service – our front line staff are the best in the world.
creativebrief: Industry wide, what work has excited you most this year in the US (or outside)?
Simon Bradley: Lots. I’m really into Sonos at the moment – I love the way they integrate their customer experience and focus on lifetime value. I get a lot of inspiration from some of our sister companies in the Virgin Group such as Virgin America and Virgin Hotels, which opened its first property this year. I also love Mini and The Guardian as we share a lot of common ground in the US market.
creativebrief: Do you draw any inspiration from brands, work or agencies outside of the US?
Simon Bradley: We’ve been hugely impressed by the work of John Lewis in the UK. We share the same agency, adam&eveDDB in London, so we’re in great hands.
creativebrief: How do you see the media landscape unfolding in the next five years?
Simon Bradley: It’s tough to predict as so many things are changing. The rise of mobile is incredible; it will become the dominant platform for a lot of communication and broaden out from handheld devices into wearables as well. I think we will also see deeper brand integration into content as consumers switch off from traditional advertising messages. Also the way we are targeting customers is changing radically with the focus now on buying access to groups of customers rather than an entire platform.
creativebrief: Do you prefer to use an ‘integrated’ or specialist agency approach?
Simon Bradley: Our approach is to give channel-neutral briefs, so we expect our agency partners to be able to create great work whatever the platform. A good example is the ‘Business is an Adventure’ work our new US agency F&P have just rolled out which consisted of digital video, OOH, mobile and social.
creativebrief: How do you stay in-touch with the industry’s best agencies and their work?
Simon Bradley: Usually through industry events and media channels. I also teach a master’s programme at NYU, so that keeps me on my toes to some extent!
creativebrief: How often do you look at new agencies or review your roster?
Simon Bradley: We have just gone through a review and appointed F&P in New York, who we love!
References
How Virgin Atlantic's Marketing Nails It
By Janine Popick
Virgin Atlantic is a small airline with a big personality. This is how it lures customers from the big guys.
I'm on a new customer experience journey at my online marketing company VerticalResponse. We're taking another look at everything we do from the ground up-- how we do it, when we do it and how our customers are going to like it. It can be challenging to take a holistic view of your entire business and redo a ton of things (at once!), but over time process changes, people change and the way you do things needs to change. So we've been looking at how other successful companies approach their customer experience.
Virgin Atlantic Hires Figliulo & Partners in North America
By Emma Hall 13.01.15
Virgin's Partnership With Delta Has Boosted Richard Branson's Airline.
Virgin Atlantic is hiring Figliulo & Partners as its North American creative agency of record, with a brief to build the brand and introduce the "Let it Fly" global campaign to the airline's second biggest market.
The search for an agency to handle the $10 million to $15 million business began in September, through agency intelligence provider creativebrief.com. Simon Bradley, Virgin Atlantic VP Marketing North America, saw pitches from a number of agencies, but incumbent Y&R New York did not repitch.
How Virgin Atlantic Approaches Content Marketing
23.06.14
In this insightful video presentation, Simon Bradley, VP Marketing, Virgin Atlantic Airways, discusses how content marketing is a journey, with experimentation & differentiation at its heart.
This presentation was bought to you in association with TDS North America 2014 taking place in New York on September 11-12. Attended by over 600 senior executives and 80+ speakers, it's the premium meeting place for America's travel industry.
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