GUIDE TO
GROWTH
CHRIS MOSS
The revolutionary road. Chris Moss
has used a simple but well-honed
tool to build billion-dollar
businesses... radical thinking
A legendary poster designed to promote
an FT redesign under the tag line “We
Live in Financial Times” reproduced the
famous Che Guevara image with Richard
Branson sporting a beret in a wash of
deep red.
Well, if Branson was Che, the
revolutionary entrepreneur leading from
the front, there is little doubt that one
of his most original lieutenants plotting
victory for the Virgin insurgents was
Chris Moss.
Moss – a marketing outrider who has
built more billion-dollar brands than most
of us have had hot dinners – has achieved
hero status by applying leftfield thinking
to win commanding positions in the
theatre of battle.
Ask this self-proclaimed agent
provocateur what is the secret to success,
and he is more likely than not to respond
by asking whether orange is a colour or
a fruit – an answer that speaks loudly to
his record as the man who created the
Orange brand.
“I am dyslexic so I constantly look for
different connections, and an interesting
thing about Branson is he’s dyslexic too,”
says Moss. “What does that mean? In his
case, it means he’s a really good connecter
– he meets lots of different people, and
brings them all together.”
Moss took the
first steps on his
revolutionary road
masterminding
the Atlantic boat
crossing in 1986
that turned
Branson into
a household
name. Before
he knew it, he
was plotting
victory
38
❝
ASK THIS SELF-
PROCLAIMED AGENT
PROVOCATEUR WHAT IS
THE SECRET TO SUCCESS,
AND HE IS MORE LIKELY
THAN NOT TO RESPOND
BY ASKING WHETHER
ORANGE IS A COLOUR
OR A FRUIT
for the entrepreneur’s new airline. “When
I joined, it wasn’t an airline – it was an
aircraft,” Moss recalls. “Virgin was known
as a bit of a rock ’n roll business in those
days: if you went into Virgin Records
there was some guy who hadn’t slept the
night before trying to serve you – they
were crazy times. So how do you make an
airline reflect something more positive?”
The big break came with Virgin’s move
from Gatwick to Heathrow in 1991 and
the opportunity offered by the merger of
British Airways with Caledonian.
“At times you have to put yourself out
of your comfort zone, and so the move
to Heathrow was huge for us not just
as a business, but as a culture, a brand.
We were changing beyond our wildest
dreams,” recounts Moss.
Even so, he had not imagined the
growth that would follow. “We wrote
a little document in about 1991 and
it was all about our airline: What do
we want it to be? We wanted to keep
it small and beautiful, no more than
12 routes and 10 aircraft!”
Moss attributes much of the
airline’s success to the unique
personality of Branson. “He
knows what he is really
good at and what he is
not really good at, and
what he manages to
do is get people to
buy in – he actually makes you feel part
of something, which for so many of us is
much more important than just taking a
pay cheque.”
After eight years at Virgin, Moss moved
on, joining Microtel to launch a new
mobile phone brand. Original thinking
again secured his legacy. “When I got
there the very first thing I said was ‘We
probably need to change the name’.”
It took “a bit of persuading”: his
proposal for the new brand was “Orange”.
“They thought I was completely
barking mad, because here is this guy
coming from Virgin who has never been
in mobile phones before and wants to
call it after some fruit. We had this huge
debate which went on for weeks as to
whether orange is a fruit or a colour.”
Two years later, and with massive
success under his belt, Moss was on the
move again – merging Lloyds and TSB,
shaping the global satellite company ICO,
launching the Opodo travel brand, and
eventually joining directory enquiries
provider 118 118.
A generous spirit, he can share many
lessons learned from his journey, not
least the importance of culture and
visionary management. “Culture kills
strategy every time, so you can have
the best strategy in the whole world
but if the culture isn’t there to engage,
implement and love the business there’s
no point in having any strategy,” says
Moss.
“Great management also have the
ability to change their minds – I’ve seen
Branson change his mind – and that’s
fantastic, because they are confident
enough to listen to others. You also have
to put a great team together – and to get
a great team you can’t just have a group
of techies, you need to have a blend
of personalities. Something Richard
recognised early was that there were
times when he needed to step back and
let others take the lead.”
SME 2017 www.smeweb.com