Branson pledges “battle” with Murdoch over quality
Few publishers are better at self publicity than Richard Branson and the Virgin head once again illustrated his knack for a photo op with a surreal stunt in New York yesterday.
Branson had flown into town to promote Project, an iPad only magazine which launched yesterday. Dressed head to toe in a newspaper suit and surrounded by similarly bedecked mannequins the blonde haired entrepreneur cut a surreal figure on the city’s streets.
The paper mache foot soldiers are on the front line in a “… battle over quality” with Murdoch’s titles, Branson said.
Project’s editor, Anthony Noguera, described the iPad as more “immersive” than a website, offering user’s spoken commentary, animation, video and even an interactive tour of a prototype Jaguar, previewed in the launch issue.
Project is set to go head to head with Murdoch’s “Daily” iPad paper when it launches in the New Year. This will have a swifter turnaround in content compared to Branson’s title but has been criticised for having no links in or out of its iPad pages.
Despite this fighting talk Project has received mixed reviews thus far.