Why I Heart Richard Branson

Today via Reuters, Richard Branson challenges Lotus F1’s Tony Fernandes to a chummy duel where the loser must dress like stewardess. Branson and Fernandes used to work together at Virgin Music.

More importantly he’s a PR dream. Getting the media to cover Branson isn’t difficult these days. The man’s got cheek which, combined with legitimate, ground-breaking innovation in business, equates to one massively interesting bloke. Makes me wonder if this guy borrowed the title, “Most Interesting Man.”

Meanwhile. Business exec in drag…Can we say Twitpic?

NFL & Twitter, Part Deux

Stemming from the discussion about NFL and social media, file this next piece under the “pro” column. Fans got an update via Twitpic about Seattle Seahawks Matt Hasselbeck’s status after he took a heavy hit diving into the end zone Sunday night.

Is this a new evolution in sports PR? Ap Style and the bevy of approvals aside, the decision to use Twitter to issue a “statement” here is genius. We’d normally see a statement crawl out late Sunday night or Monday morning, but in this case, a simple Tweet and picture communicated all the fans and media needed to know. A smiling, waving Hasselbeck was going to be OK.

Once again, the genius here was the ability for Hesselbeck and his PR team to quickly huddle and use a low-frills, real-time social media tool to disseminate an important message. It’s about tools and execution. We many times overthink this.