Sir Richard Branson, Giant Babies and Piccadilly Circus.

Sir Richard Branson, Giant Babies and Piccadilly Circus.

Another mentor I followed was Richard Branson in my early twenties I read a biography about Sir Richard and it lead to giant babies London’s Piccadilly Circus and an estimated 5 million listeners.

Here is the short story. Richard Branson started is carrier in the music industry selling records in fact, from a telephone box. As a young man I figured I had something in common with him, I could use a telephone box too.

One of his favorite strategies to get press attention for new product launches was to devise some sort of stunt or gimmick that would gain free press attention.

Now at this point I was the owner of store selling baby equipment, it may seem a little odd that a 24 year old single guy with no children was a proprietor of such a business but that is another story. While I was in this business I had the idea to have an educational video made for first time parents (this may also seem odd), and believe it or not I wrote the script and had a London film company make the video. Even by today’s standards it was quite the production and cost thousands and thousands of the good old British Pounds to make it, in fact, I kid you not; one of the cameramen had just come from a James Bond set which is yet another story.

Anyway a large chain store at the time (Mothercare) refused to sell my product because “it did not show any of there branded product in the video, and was therefore not a complete representation of the market” and yes you guest it, yet another story. So I came up with my Sir Richard Branson and decided to pull a stunt to get media attention.

The Stunt, my then business partner and I decided we would fly down to London and protest outside Mothercare in giant baby outfits much like the big Sumo Wrestling outfits but with large towel baby diapers and baby hats. With our little signs and our huge baby outfits we stood and protested outside the store until the police came and asked us to move, which we did. Looking back now that would have been a good story, GIANT BABIES ARESTED IN PICADILLY CIRCUS, so instead we paraded up and down Piccadilly Circus and handed out mail order leaflets which was not an arrestable offence.

So did it work? Well kind of, we did get a spot on London’s biggest morning radio show with an estimated 5 million listeners.

Did it get the video flying off the shelves, well that’s another story!