The Virgin Money brand in the US
- Oct 16, 2008
In Business Stripped Bare, Richard tells us about the strength of the Virgin brand in the UK and how Virgin Money's negotiations to rescue and rebrand Northern Rock made headline news for weeks. But in the US, it's not immediately obvious to most Americans that Virgin is a brand that should be in the financial services business. Virgin is known for records, right? Or is it mobile phones and airlines? When we ran radio ads as Virgin Money in certain US markets, we got some very interesting calls from people who think about virgins and money in a whole different way!
Where there's no instant recognition and appeal for the Virgin brand, we are introducing many people to their first experience with a Virgin business - and we better get it right. Given our unique product line at Virgin Money US, consumers recognize pretty quickly that we offer a fresh, innovative and friendly approach to personal finance. So we started to measure ourselves and align performance incentives for net promoter score metrics such as willingness to refer and customer experience. These are often soft and fuzzy to measure so most financial types hate them. I am a financial type too, but I have come to understand that measuring the soft stuff helps everyone know that it's important and it ensures that we are building a company for the long term.
