Brand Story, the beginning of Virgin

The year was 1973 and Richard Branson had just hit the big 3-0. He was living in London England at the time and working for a large marketing company based just outside of London. It's not that he didn't enjoy his job, he loved it and he was good at it. However, he always felt like there was something missing in his life, like he was put on this world to do greater things. One sunny afternoon he was walking through the park accross the street from his apartment, where he went once in a while just to think and be on his own. He was walking through, when he passed by this younger woman sitting on a bench with an open guitar case infront of her playing the guitar and singing away. Richard was intrigued, he had never heard a voice as beautiful as this one. He put 3 pounds into the woman's guitar case and stood there to listen for a few minutes. Later on that night while out for dinner with some friends Richard brought up the woman in the park, and expressed to his mates how he really thought that this woman could make it in the music world. Jokingly one of his friends suggested that Richard himself should produce her music, everyone had a little chuckle, except for Richard who's wheels in his head were spinning, faster and faster. Richard spent the entire rest of the night sitting at the table in the diner, all of his friends had left but Richard on the other hand was dreaming up this multi-million dollar music label. He had papers everywhere, jotting down ideas, throwing around numbers in his head. The very next day he made a few phone calls to family members, business associates etc, and unfortunately no one was interested in investing other than his great uncle whom he hadn't spoken to in years. Later that day he went back to the park and with his luck the young woman was there again Richard approached her and told her about the music label that he was going to start and was wondering if she would be his very first artist to produce. The young woman laughed and called Richard crazy, and told him he would be able to start a music label when she became a virgin again (that is where the name Virgin came from). Later that week Richard met with his wealthy business man Uncle who willingly invested money in Richards "big idea" and helped him plan everything out. About a year later Virgin began, and Richard found the woman from the park, and indeed she was the first artist to record and produce music in Virgin's first studio. And, the rest is history, Richard went on to extend the brand to just about anything he could think of, airplanes, trains, mobile cell phones, clothing and the list goes on and on. Without a doubt with all the technological advancements there's no telling what Virgin will come up with next.