Quick-thinking Richard Branson pulls off clever PR stunt in London – here are five of his best stunts

Eccentric billionaire Richard Branson has made the news once again in one of his trademark publicity stunts, this time using a blimp to poke fun at the British Airways sponsored London Eye, which was suffering a technical glitch.

In a move that exemplifies Branson’s quick-thinking, the company was able to erect an airship with a slogan that poked fun at the company and promoted Branson’s corporation at the same time.

“I was woken up at 5.30am one morning to be told that the BA-sponsored London Eye had a technical problem – they couldn’t erect it,” Branson said on his blog.

“They had the world’s press waiting to see it going up and I knew we had a duty to give them something to look at. We had an airship company just outside London so we scrambled a blimp and the end result was an airship flying over the wheel bearing the slogan ‘BA Can’t Get It Up!!’”

It’s yet another of Branson’s signature stunts for various product launches, although some have been more successful than others. Some have flopped altogether.

Branson put out a call to his Twitter followers to submit their favourite stunts – here are five of ours.

Branson rappels from a cage

In this March 2007 stunt, Branson promoted the launch of mobile phone number portability in Canada by rappelling from a cage suspended 80 feet above a public square in Toronto.

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Branson’s English Channel drive

Back in 2004, Branson used an amphibious car to drive across the English Channel to France, in a journey that took just under two hours but garnered a lot of publicity for Virgin.

And two years ago, Branson planned to make the journey again via kitesurf – although was forced to abandoned the plan due to rough weather.   

Branson drives a tank into New York

In 1998, Branson launched Virgin Cola in the United States and drove a tank down New York’s Fifth Avenue and then pretended to blow up the Coca Cola sign in Times Square.

But despite the publicity, Virgin Cola was a failure.

Branson’ Las Vegas jet-ski stunt

In June 2010, Branson rode a jet-ski across the iconic lake outside the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas and then proceeded to “conduct” the lake’s fountains. The stunt celebrated Virgin Atlantic’s 10th anniversary in America.

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Branson and the final frontier

Among Virgin’s most ambitious ventures is the plan to put travellers in space. Virgin Galactic was first unveiled in 2004 as a way to commercialise space travel, and in true form, Branson appeared at the announcement in a full space suit.

Given test flights were only held in 2010 and 2011, commercial space travel won’t be around for some time. But at least the initial announcement was a big one.