Eric Edelstein - as far from Perez Hilton as possible

I’ve always liked the Virgin Brand. I remember years ago reading Richard Branson’s autobiography and being enthralled by the risks and choices he made as he went about creating his world wide empire.

The virgin brand launched in South Africa a few years ago, when they rescued the ill fated Health & Racquet club from drowning, and in the process, took over the database of the trendy and yuppie South African brigade. I’ve been expecting them to do a lot more with this database in the last few years, but haven’t seen anything yet.

One of the talents Richard Branson has is creating publicity and hype around his products. Sometimes the Virgin brand launches a new company or division with Branson hot air ballooning, at other times, it attractive girls, limo’s and champagne party’s.

It’s always stylish.

About a year ago, Branson began criticizing the South African credit card industry, with widespread publicity about his views on the Credit Card fees.

The credit card fees in South Africa are too high, banks are making too much money from credit cards, credit cards are just plain boring was the message coming from the Virgin machine.

And then the Bling launched. The Virgin credit card looked kewl (see a picture of it, by clicking here). The Virgin Credit card had a hip hop type factor to it, which was totally different to any other credit card on the market. The marketing was trendy and cutting edge appealing in a large way to the yuppie market.

Other banks such as Nedbank had tried to create loyalty with their credit cards by printing affinity to the arts and sport, and the marketing included the promise that a certain percentage of spend on the credit card would go to organisations connected to these industries - to advance sports and art and other such programs.

But the Virgin credit card is different - the benefits Branson spoke about are there, but the card itself just looks good!

There are great benefits…

• For the first 3 months you only pay 0% interest, and after that the Virgin Credit Card give you a good deal at 19%
• The Virgin Credit Card pays you to save - you earn a whopping 8% interest on all positive balances
• No annual card fees on the Virgin Credit Card
• Access to the Virgin Credit Card VIP Programme, including services and products from the other companies in the Virgin group and also some great deals at select partner stores
• The Virgin Credit Card doesn’t ask you to pay for the VIP programme – it’s yours for free
• You can pick your Virgin Money Credit Card from 3 funky design options
• And the Virgin Credit Card throws in automatic Lost Card & Travel Insurance as part of the deal

Find out more about the benefits of the Virgin “Bling” Credit card, by visiting the Virgin Credit Card application form.

Disclaimer: Although this blog post is about the South African Credit card industry and the Virgin Credit card, and is not a direct sponsored posting, the posting does earn money from certain actions.