George Parker is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com. Every week he shares his opinions on the advertising world with PSFK.

Google
Experiment rapidly, embrace failure.
Apple
Every aspect of your brand should be as good as the product.
Zipcar
Stop selling products, start selling services.
GOOD Magazine
Set the agenda and let your customers spread the conversation.
Amazon
Identify parts of our business that could be offered as additional services.
Facebook
Create the playground and let your customers define your offering.
Virgin
Think big , think small. Amaze customers with your audacity, please them with your attention to detail and customer service.
Twitter
Stay flexible, allow your audience to dictate how your services or products are used.
IKEA
Take a wider view of the shopping experience, making each step along the path to purchase simpler and, more [...]

The Virgin Group continues to make headlines, bringing its fun and irreverent personality to new and old business segments alike. Exemplified by its recently launched Virgin America airline, Virgin has listened to consumers, identified problems easily fixed, and executed in flawless fashion. Small conveniences, such  as in-flight Internet connectivity, a newly designed in-flight entertainment system, and a new food service model has made the airline a top pick for fliers.
Lesson for Business:
Think big, think small. Amaze customers with your audacity, please them with your attention to detail.

“When you see the Virgin name on something, you know it will be a [...]

Virgin recently broke ground on the site of their spaceport in New Mexico. In less than 20 months, the company hopes to construct a 3000 ft runway and facilities called Spaceport America to act as the launching pad for Virgin Galactic and other space-bound flights. The BBC has this report on the project that had been designed by Lord Foster:

A quick look at the stats and figures on the site provides some interesting reading about how the new site plans to use sustainable methods to offset some of its carbon footprint:
• Earth Tubes under the earth berm to cool the [...]

Virgin Mobile’s newly-announced Broadband2Go service will give customers a contract-free option for portable broadband. Users will receive a pre-paid 3G broadband USB dongle for $150, which they can then pre-load with a certain amount of data useage; $10 for 100MB, $20 for 250MB, $40 for 600MB and $60 for 1GB. Service will expire after 10 days for the 100MB plan, and after 30 days for all others.
[via Engadget]

Virgin is teaming up with Google to promote cloud computing. On June 24th, the Day in the Cloud Challenge, lets players compete versus others either on the ground or while flying in one of Virgin’s flights through WiFi. If you’re flying Virgin that day, you’ll receive free WiFi to join the challenge. But if you have work to do, you can opt to share documents, email, browse websites or anything you normally do back at the office.
Whether you can teleconference is not clear, though it might be fun to collaborate on solving a puzzle while flying.

Virgin Atlantic recently unveiled an in-flight entertainment service that lets travelers browse a video collection of entrepreneurial business ideas.  The dedicated channel, dubbed PitchTV, hopes to attract the airline’s business passengers and allows a simple way for those interested to contact the entrepreneurs directly.  It’s an innovative way to connect new ideas with the necessary venture capital to make it possible.
Those with ideas can upload videos to Virgin’s website and those with the highest rating will be featured on the airline’s service, which is rotated monthly.  One interesting idea we found was ShareMeme, a mini-service that allows you to contact [...]

Dickie B is planning to invest $1 billion into the development of alternative fuels over the next four years.

There’s a very interesting interview with Dickie B over on the Guardian. Highlights include where the exploration of the creation and sales of the various units within the Virgin brand umbrella.