Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Advertising Age

REINVENTING A CATEGORY WITH SKY-HIGH BRAND BUZZ; VP-Marketing Gale leans on Twitter, splashy launches to stretch ad dollars.

Article Excerpt
Byline: RITA CHANG

How do you compete as an upstart in the cutthroat domestic airline industry when your marketing budget is a fraction of your rivals'? For Porter Gale, VP-marketing at domestic value carrier Virgin America, you make every dollar stretch and use social media and buzz to amplify every marketing event, all the while trying to show that Virgin is the antidote to marginal domestic air travel.

In some respects Ms. Gale is a fitting candidate to run a lean, start-up airline. With a master's degree in documentary film from Stanford University, she's a filmmaker who has had to figure out how to produce high-quality content on shoestring budgets. As she financed her own projects with her credit card, she discovered that one way to make the dollars go far is to recruit people who share her passion for a project.

To make big splashes for new-product and market launches, Ms. Gale leans on social media, big-name celebrities and iconic pop-culture phenomena.

The tech-savvy brainchild of British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group owns just under 25% of the airline...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!