How I got in front of Richard Branson

Back when I was at MBA school in London, Ontario I decided on a whim to go see Richard Branson who was going to be in Toronto the next day.

That spontaneous decision led to a live MTV moment, a fire escape sprint, and one of the best product stunts I’ve ever pulled off. We’ll walk through how

It was spring 2007. I was in my apartment in London, Ontario folding freshly produced pairs of my startup company SAXX watching TV when I saw Richard Branson was going to be at MTV live tomorrow in Toronto, 2 hours away.

I love Richard Branson and he was an inspirational person, entrepreneur, and philanthropist at that time.

I had read all his books and looked up to him for the adventurer and master of spectacle in marketing he and the Virgin brand are so I decided at that moment I was going to MTV live tomorrow.

I immediately sat down that night and started writing a handwritten letter to Richard, found my best pair of SAXX, and put on the labels.

I called a few of my friends and rallied the troops to say we were going to Toronto tomorrow to catch MTV live. Little did anyone else know I was gonna get a pair of SAXX to Richard Branson - I just had to figure out how.

The next afternoon me and three buddies were driving to Toronto with my handwritten letter, package, and high spirits.

We got to the Masonic temple where they filmed MTV live and got into the show, about four rows back.

Richard arrived with amazing energy and all of us were on the edge of our seat. I had to find a window to interact with Richard.

The commercial break came and Richard and his security were up on the stage. A producer from MTV came out with a mic and said does anyone from the audience have a question for Richard - everyone’s hand shot up.

The producer asked me what I wanted to ask Richard so I stood up and I said I’d love to ask him about being shut out of Heathrow airport by British Airways and how he overcame that.

The producer said “yeah cool, sure,” and threw me the mic so now I had the mic and I started looking to the cameras to see when we were rolling on national TV, knowing I had my SAXX in my jacket and that I wasn’t actually gonna ask him that question about Heathrow.

As soon as the red lights of the camera came back on, and I saw myself on the screens I stood up and proceeded to take off my jacket, revealing a SAXX t-shirt.

I pulled out the package I had prepared for Richard and starting talking about bollocks and balls because Richard had just been talking about how you “have to have balls and bollocks” to be an entrepreneur.

I then said “I have the best underwear in the world, it’s the evolution of men’s underwear, and I’d love to give you this package with a pair inside.”

I begin walking down over the rows and as I get up to the front of the stage the security come right to the edge, but everyone sees I’m not really a threat - I’m actually bringing some positive energy - and I walk up onto the stage and I give Sir Branson the package.

He receives me amazingly and takes the pair of SAXX out of the package and proceeds to put them on over his pants on live TV!

All the hosts are loving it, Richard is loving it, I’m loving it, and of course my buddies are loving it.

We can’t believe this is happening and then Richard and I start rapping about underwear, business, marketing, etc, and he tells me “You really know how to promote your product.”

That’s like Wayne Gretzky telling you you’re a good hockey player.

Our segment continues. It’s amazing. (I unfortunately cannot track down the original copy of that episode, if you know anyone at Bell TV, I want to buy it. Let me know)

As I feel the energy moving towards a commercial break I can see the security coming for me as soon as we are off air.

I had already pre-determined an escape route (a side little fire escape down the stairs). And as soon as the red light went off for the commercial break, I thanked Richard, jumped over the back rail of the stage, over the rail of the stairs, went down the stairs and busted through the fire escape door and just kept running down the street away from all the security.

My buddies said it was the greatest chase of all time and I got away to live to tell the story.

Someone who knew Richard later told me he loved that experience and loved his pair.

It was one of the best experiences and guerrilla marketing events spectacles that I could’ve ever created.

This story relates to everyone’s business and life in that we should all be trying to live a life of adventure and trying to meet our heroes, have fun, not really hurting anyone while we do it.

Richard Branson is an awesome example. A person, who as a kid was misunderstood and their perceived defects (in his case dyslexia) became their superpower, because he’s so powerful in all other ways regardless of teachers trying to keep him in straight lines, which would have been a massive negative for society.

I’m glad those teachers failed and I’m glad Richard persevered and is now a shining example for people with any obstacles that they can achieve great things.

Who do you look up to? Have you ever met one of your heroes in real life and want to share the story? I would love to hear it in the comments below!