If your phone is ringing and you don’t recognize the 203-750-2000 CallerID, go ahead and answer your phone. It’s just about the coolest marketing trick I’ve seen yet. I’ll write more about it next week, but for now, I’m not going to give away the surprise. This is just one more extra step that you almost come to expect of Virgin Atlantic, and that you couldn’t imagine any other airline even attempting without sounding like cheesy telemarketers. But with Virgin Atlantic, it works, and it’s pretty cool. Marketing done right. And if you’re going to bother to have a "brand" in this new age of "conversations," you better deliver like these folks do.

Oh, and while I’m on the topic of Virgin Atlantic’s extra steps, let me also say a very big Thank You to the excellent Virgin Atlantic staff in LA and in London, from the LAX staff that went above and beyond when my sister had to reschedule her flight, to the woman at the gate at Heathrow who mailed my last handful of postcards so I wouldn’t have to leave the gate area. All those little extras add up quickly. Bet you can guess which airline I’m flying next time I’m off to London.

PS: If you’re impatient or want to make sure they call you (and you don’t mind putting your phone number in their database), you can sign up here. You can also have them call your friends; my sister just called me laughing non-stop after I had them call her.   Happy holidays everyone!