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DO SOMETHING OUTRAGEOUS
It’s not as easy as it used to be to get into the Guinness Book of Records; they’ve banned all the silly things that might hurt people. But it’s not impossible. There are other things that get you noticed, as well as record breaking. It’s got to be something that would make people think, “Wow, fancy doing that!” and not “Blimey, that was stupid.”
The idea Sir Richard Branson has carried out a series of publicity generating events. He raced across the Atlantic ocean in his speedboat, the Virgin Atlantic Challenger, to win the Blue Riband speed record in 1986. He and Per Lindstrand were the first people to cross the Atlantic in a hot air balloon. When he got old enough to pick up his bus pass, he scaled down his adventures a little and has had a couple of disasters, such as crashing into a wall while abseiling down a hotel building and tipping himself and his beautiful passenger off a jet ski into a Las Vegas lake. He also had to abandon his 2008 Atlantic crossing in a yacht named Virgin Money, at about the same time as when the recession kicked in. The story of one of the most outrageous acts was made into a film, Calendar Girls, and changed the image of the Women’s Institute forever. One Yorkshire branch of the WI modelled for their own calendar, naked except for strategically placed tea, cakes and
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100 Great Branding Ideas 14dec.indd 211
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