Our Brand
Gabrielle Howarth N0735657
Contents Our Story The Virgin Atlantic Experience Our Mission Our Values Brand Positioning Our Brand Identity through the years Brand Guidelines - From airplanes to app buttons - Our Logo - Font - Colour Palette - Illustrations - Tone of Voice
Products Our Guests Brand Touchpoints Sustainability Social Media The Future
Our Story
In 1984, Virgin Atlantic was launched, embracing values that all Virgin companies promote – value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge. As with all Virgin companies our aim was to offer something that was missing in the service of longhaul flights – especially when it comes to customer experience.
Founder of Virgin Atlantic, Sir Richard Branson. Back in the early 80s, Richard Branson was probably best known for Virgin Records - the legendary record label that signed major names like the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson and The Human League. In 1984, much to the horror of his directors, Richard announced to the world that a high quality, value for money airline would begin operating within three months. Three months, some licences, staff and an aircraft packed with celebrities later, Virgin Atlantic Airways was born. By the end of the decade we had flown over 1 million passengers and started shaking up services onboard by being the first airline to offer individual TVs to their business class passengers.
Our Mission Challenging the status quo - taking on industry giants and championing people and the planet Our mission statement is simple, yet the foundation of everything we do at Virgin Atlantic Airways... To embrace the human spirit and let it fly.
The Virgin Atlantic Experience
Virgin has always focused its efforts on offering something completely different to what already exists – especially when it comes to customer experience. We thrive on doing things differently and creating an experience like no other. ‘We were the first airline to offer onboard entertainment.’ ‘We pioneered using LED lights to welcome and soothe passengers, knowing those pink and purple lights would help them relax and get some sleep.’
Our Values
Brand Positioning Our values are what keep our people, our products and our partners on the path to change business for good.
We focus on customer aspirations. We are first-class airline focused on providing passengers with fun, class, and comfort. We are making flying fun and enjoyable again. Our core customers, or our guests as we like to know them, are international business travellers. Our brand is a reflection of our guests and we are giving them what they want and need at every touchpoint of their journey with us.
They are what makes Virgin so special and provide the magic everyone experiences when they spend time with us. Providing heartfelt service, being delightfully surprising, red hot, and straight up while maintaining an insatiable curiosity and creating smart disruption.
Make flying fun again. Banish mediocrity from the skies.
Positioning Matrix
Our Brand Identity through the Years
1984-1999 1999-2006
Brand Guidelines
Virgin Atlantic has one of the most recognisable brands in the air.. It’s designed to be uniquely right for us, clearly differentiating us while also being part of the larger Virgin group. The requirements for our brand mark are diverse and varied.
2006-2010
From full colour fuselage, to screen-printed catering packs, to tiny logos on travel ‘aggregator’ sites, our logo is developed to suit all situations. Refer to the following pages for guidance on how to use our brand identity.
2010-present
There have been numerous special editions of the livery to celebrate or commemorate different things.
From airplanes to app buttons
Our Logo
Only use the official master provided.
Our brand identity guidelines enable us to establish greater consistency across all of our communications, whilst creating brand stand-out at every touchpoint.
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Font We should always use the appropriate weight of font for the communication. When we lead with one weight, we can still use any of the full family to add pace and detail to our communications, as long as it adds to the creative concept. Gotham, was chosen to reinforce and accentuate the clean and modern aesthetic that has become a stamp of everything we do. The font family includes a variety of different weights, from Ultra to Thin, allowing for a flexible range when building a hierarchy in.
Gotham Gotham Gotham Gotham
Colour Palette
We know that Virgin Atlantic is built around red. A colour that is riotous and challenging. So our rule is to ensure we always have some element of red in our communications. We also have a wider accent colour palette to differentiate our products.
Light
Core Colours These are our core brand colours and should be used consistently across all communications. Book
Spot PMS186 C0 M100 Y76 K6 R235 G20 B58 Medium
Bold
Spot PMS2623 C68 M99 Y2 K41 R91 G5 B106
C0 M0 Y0 K0 R255 G255 B255
Spot PMS877
Illustrations
Linear and Graphic We have an illustrative line style that is inspired by our Gotham typeface. Our linear style takes the look and feel of the Gotham typeface beyond lettering and into illustration.
Tone of Voice
If you think of Virgin Atlantic as a person, then our Tone of Voice is our personality. It’s how we express ourselves. It’s the thing that makes us different from every other airline business. Like a person, our Tone of Voice has evolved a little over the years, while staying true to who we are.
The Gotham inspired line is our handwriting and drawing style.
INSATIABLY CURIOUS Asking ‘what if?’ and ‘why the hell not?’
HEARTFELT SERVICE Everything we do says ‘we give a damn’
SMARTLY DISRUPTIVE Unpredictable, and anything but safe
STRAIGHT UP Always doing the right thing for the customer
RED HOT Irresistible, sensational, sealed with quality
DELIGHTFULLY SURPRISING Little touches of charm that make people smile
Our Guests DEMOGRAPHICS Gender: Male Age: 40-54 Social grade: ABC1
HOBBIES & ACTIVITIES Sports Sudoku Travelling
PROF. INTERESTS Information Technology Media and Publishing Business
FAVOURITE SPORTS Cricket Cycling Rugby Union
MONTHLY SPARE £1000 or more
GENERAL INTERESTS Travel and Holidays Drama Business and Finance
POLITICS Right
Products
We have has three cabin classes on our aircrafts.
Economy Class / Premium / Upper (Business Class) We operate a total of 32 daily nonstop flights between North America and the UK.
TOP REGIONS London South Coast East Anglia
FAVOURITE DISHES Honeycomb Salt and pepper chicken Sushi MOST LIKELY PET Fish
“I like to go to trendy restaurants and bars Describes themselves as... analytical, well Educated and flirtatious I am happy with my standard of living I like to surround myself with a diverse range of cultures and ideas”
Sustainability Brand Touchpoints Before the airport
Outside the airport
Take off
On the pavement/ door
First 10 metres
In the air
Change is in the Air is the name we give to
our sustainability programme, because we believe that sustainability means changing things for the better.
On environment, we focus our efforts on areas that have the biggest effect on our environmental footprint, such as reducing our aircraft emissions through more efficient, quieter aircraft, innovating on new fuels and reducing our waste. Through our Sustainable Design and Buying programme, we’re also working with our designers, buyers and suppliers to improve the social and environmental standards of the products and services we source.
Queuing
After journey
Check-in
Security
At Virgin Atlantic, we buy all sorts of things and we aim to do this in a way that minimises damage to the environment and has a positive impact on society. First we ask suppliers to sign our comprehensive Responsible Supplier Policy, covering people, animal and environmental issues. We’re also members of Sedex, so we can use their model and expertise to promote positive labour practices in our supply chains. And as well as focusing on our highest spend areas (such as aircraft and fuel), we do a deep dive into other areas. For example, in 2013 we were the first airline to partner with the Sustainable Restaurant Association to improve the sustainability standards of the 12 million meals we serve onboard every year, which has made great gains over the years. We also have an Ethical Carriage of Cargo Policy that covers what our aircraft carry as freight. We don’t carry live animals or commodities without a valid import/export or CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) licence. And refuse to carry a number of commodities outright, such as shark fins, ivory, hunting trophies and fur products.
Social Media
Virgin is an extremely diverse group of companies ranging from airlines through to space travel. With a mission to be the most irresistible brand in the world, it’s no surprise that social media has become their go-to for connecting with as many people as possible. Everyone, from founder Richard Branson to down to new recruits and people engaging face-to-face with customers, is empowered on social within Virgin group, so they rely on Hootsuite to simplify the connections between all of the teams and the networks that the brand needs to keep themselves at the forefront of everything that’s happening on social media. • Knitted social media into the fabric of the company • Listen to conversations to improve product and service offerings • Educate customers what’s going on in the Virgin world • Connected the whole team on social media using Hootsuite ‘Social media moves so quickly but we want to be at the forefront of everything thats happening and make sure that we stay ahead of the game’
“ Social media is such a terrific way to connect with our customers that I would never miss out.” Richard Branson, founder, Virgin
The Future Virgin Galactic recognizes that the answers to many of the challenges we face in sustaining life on our beautiful but fragile planet, lie in making better use of space. Sending people to space has not only expanded our understanding of science, but taught us amazing things about human ingenuity, physiology and psychology. From space, we are able to look with a new perspective both outward and back. From space, the borders that are fought over on Earth are arbitrary lines. From space it is clear that there is much more that unites than divides us.
“ We are at the vanguard of a new industry determined to pioneer twenty-first century spacecraft, which will open space to everybody — and change the world for good.” Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Galactic