Dispatch: Miami and Richard Branson’s big parties, Part 1

By Arnie Weissmann

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Virgin Atlantic’s first flight from Heathrow to Miami, the airline’s president, Richard Branson, decided to throw a few parties in Miami and invite media, much of his staff, very frequent fliers and local bigwigs.

I was among the celebrants, and although I wrote a hard news story about the airline’s competitive position vis-à-vis British Airways and American Airlines, and a column about the Virgin Group’s unique brand positioning, this dispatch is about the surrounding fluff: the parties, venues and hotels in South Beach, and the singular and contrarian nature of Richard Branson himself.

Virgin put most of us in the Mondrian Miami South Beach Hotel, which is along Biscayne Bay, on the opposite side of South Miami Beach from what is generally considered the trendiest part.

I didn’t mind the location at all. I love the Mondrian. It’s part of the Morgans Hotel Group and represents the best of that brand — a fun, style-forward hotel with lots of unexpected twists, yet bound by thematic designs. For the most part, it’s a terrific property. (I’ll get back to "for the most part" in Part 2.)

I landed in Miami about 15 minutes before the first party, at a hotel/restaurant/event space called the Villa by Barton G. It’s the former home — mansion, really — of fashion scion Gianni Versace, who was murdered on its threshold in July 1997.

I was given a brief on it by its PR rep (“That’s the room where Madonna stayed, that’s where Elton John stayed”), and I have to say that it is truly a lovely space, with a pool backed by an impressive mosaic wall and a wonderful open-air courtyard.

Its potential downside, truth be told, is that its public spaces are all open-air, and should it rain, your event will be dampened. A very light rain blew through the party, but most guests stood their ground.

Sir Richard (I’m told that almost no one actually calls him that; occasionally foreign press will commit the faux pas of “Sir Branson”) greeted everyone personally as they descended to the lower pool area, and he introduced the evening’s entertainment, British musician Ellie Goulding. She is sufficiently famous that about half the crowd stopped talking and listened to her as she performed.

At one point I chatted with a young man who told me he was there because he had participated in an event preceding the party for the benefit of a nonprofit called Free the Children, which is the Virgin Group’s designated charity. In exchange for a donation, one could attend and spend a few hours with Branson talking about entrepreneurial ideas.

The young man had flown down from New York to do this, and he was still in the afterglow of having spoken with Branson about his ideas. He was 26, and from his appearance and the content of the conversation, I would guess he came from a privileged background.

He said he was in “real estate,” and spoke about how his father had died the year before, at 61, and how it made him feel that every day counted, and he had to really move forward with his ambitions.

I ineffectually suggested that it might actually do him some good to relax and enjoy his 20s — that there was still plenty of time to do great things — but it was a weak argument in the face of a father’s death at 61. I left the party feeling a bit unsettled by his ambition. I don’t doubt he will succeed spectacularly at a relatively young age.

The next morning, the agenda stated that there would be a “stunt” at 8:30. Press gathered on the hotel terrace facing Biscayne Bay, and right on cue, two boats came racing towards us, creating a scene straight out of Miami Vice. Branson was driving the chase boat.

On the third pass in front of the terrace, he picked up a megaphone and ordered the other boat to halt, boarded it, and “arrested” supermodel Karolina Kurkova (his end of the handcuffs was attached to the front of his belt). They posed for photos on the boat and again after coming ashore. As they walked around the hotel pool to a press conference, they both jumped in, and posed for more photos.

In our conversation later, Branson characterized the pool leap as an effort to reinforce his brand. We didn’t discuss it, but part of his personal brand is his “bad boy” image. In the pool, he delighted in carrying Kurkova around for photographers, he flirted with young female reporters during his press conference, and generally revels in what would be considered, in polite or politically correct company, the objectification of women.

While he could not behave in such a manner and run for public office, he’s also no more likely to be called out for being sexist than would James Bond. The comparison is apt: Branson is as much an impresario and performer as he is an entrepreneur, and most of us couldn’t say for certain if his playboy image is anything more than just that: an image, carefully cultivated for decades, and continuing as he enters his 60s.

I’ve interviewed Branson a couple of times over the years, and he’s certainly one of the most charismatic industry figures I’ve encountered. And beyond his image, I’ve found him to be both smart and shrewd.

In our conversation, he carefully positioned what one could see as defeat — his inability to stop the BA-AA antitrust immunity — as a win, by saying corporations embraced him as a hedge to the combined power of his competitors.

I also interviewed Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway, but then hurried up to my room — it was 10 a.m., and I had to get both my column and a news story written relatively quickly to make my deadlines.