MUMBAI: Virgin UK’s new owner, the Bennett, Colemnan backed TIML is scheduled to introduce the new brand for Virgin Radio in the days following this year’s Virgin Mobile-sponsored V Festival, which takes place on 16 and 17 August.
The company will have to stop using the Virgin brand by 1 October at the latest. Albion, a creative agency previously responsible for developing brands like Skype, is in charge of the rebranding, says a report, in the Brand Republic. Under the terms of its ?53.2m acquisition of the station from previous owner SMG, TIML decided to save millions of pounds annually by not continuing to license the Virgin brand from Virgin Enterprises.
Addressing Universal McCann’s Radio Immersion Week recently, TIML chief operating officer Clive Dickens said, “We have a word [new name] right now, but that needs to be developed into a brand and we want to work on that with our five million-strong community. We want to take our community on that journey with us. Small changes have already started on the radio station.”
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TIML chief executive Donnach O’Driscoll, also speaking at the Universal McCann event, said that the new owners had no set date to make a return on its ?53m investment.
The station, in a bid to take on competitors like Sky and Apple, is now in talks with music labels to launch a subscription-based music service.Dickens told the Radio Immersion Week gathering, “This is an area we would like to develop and one we feel no other UK radio company has cornered.”We’re in the music business, so we should be developing our brand to cover the purchase of music too and we feel that the music subscription business is about to become the new way for people to buy and share music.”
Last month, Sky announced the launch of a music subscription service with Universal Music.About the re-branding exercise, Brand Republic quotes Dickens as saying, “They (TIML) are in it for the long run and are experts in developing brands. They can see the bigger picture and have given us time to work on this proposition. Now that we will no longer be restricted by the limitations of the Virgin brand, we can develop into lots of areas that were previously off limits, because we own the brand.”
