Last week, advertising group Naked Communications and spinners Frank PR snagged four prestigious AIMIA awards for their ‘Ask Richard’ campaign on behalf of struggling Sydney community radio station FBi.

Crikey readers may recall that last year, in serious financial strife after sponsorship dwindled during the GFC, FBi decided to concoct a scheme to pester billionaire Virgin chief Richard Branson for a $1 million donation, with the winner to be flicked a 5% kickback for their trouble.

The station enlisted Naked chief Adam Ferrier to come up with a stunt. He produced this:

“Ask Richard!!! Get Richard Branson’s attention, get him to give FBi One Million Bucks & You’ll get 50 Grand! Genius!”

FBi volunteers donned t-shirts with Branson’s likeness, skydived out of planes, paraded around Martin Place to get on Sunrise and got creative with fake commercials and video games to snag the billionaire’s attention.

Unsurprisingly, Branson never stumped up the cash, but the stunt saved the station from bankruptcy, doubling subscriber levels and generating sob stories across the media. According to FBi General Manager Evan Kaldor, ‘Ask Richard’ was “transformative” and alerted the music community to the imminent failure of a community icon. A win-win situation for everyone concerned you might think.

But amid the plaudits, questions persist over the commercial nature of the campaign, with FBi subscribers and community radio insiders crying foul over the decision to prostrate itself at the altar of the Branson brand. Essentially, critics say the station, on its last legs, was forced to betray its principles to survive.

A stunt at the centre of the campaign has been unmasked as a fake, and others have pointed to the some of the major players’ relationships with Virgin and the strict non-commercial stipulations in FBi’s license.

The major coup for FBi came when Virgin’s PR company setup a call with FBi breakfast presenter Alison Piotrowski a month into the campaign. In that interview (Youtube here) Branson said that the first he had heard about the campaign was when “a soaking wet Australian girl” had swum 4 kilometres to turn up on his private island to demand the cash.

Let’s go to the transcript:

Branson: “Well, the first I heard about it was I was having dinner early evening dinner on Necker Island and this rather soaking wet Australian girl stumbled into the dinner room and she’d swum 2 and a half miles from another island to get to our island to tell us all about your campaign.”

Piotrowski: “Are you serious?”

Branson: “Absolutely serious, anyway, she had a great dinner and she stayed the night and I contacted my Australian office to find out what was going on.”

The mercy dash was quickly reported on News.com.au, the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian, sending the viral campaign nuclear.

But the island swim was pure fiction. Despite numerous follow-up requests to FBi and Virgin, the mystery girl’s identity has never been revealed. (This morning, Crikey was told by FBi that “we’d have to ask Virgin” whether the story was true).

Crikey understands that the visit was entirely the invention of Virgin’s Australian PR department, who wanted to kick the campaign along.

In the next part of the interview, Branson gives Virgin a plug:

Branson: “I hope that over the last months that the various Virgin companies have tried to be as helpful as possible so I think Virgin mobile and Virgin Atlantic and V-Fest are all sort of all doing things with you..maybe we should mention the new airline flying between new airline V Australia flying between London and Los Angeles, sorry Sydney and Los Angeles, we’ll be providing you with two business class tickets on that to throw into the pot…It’s the best airline flying between Australia and America of course.”

Piotrowski: “My understanding is that Virgin are actually going to do an immense amount of work to help us out over the coming months.”

Instead of donating the cash, Branson’s flaks in Australia had decided to donate flights and tickets to his V-Festival in the UK. But those on-air promotions put FBi in breach of its sponsorship guidelines which prohibit commercial plugs outside of formal announcements (FBi denies this, saying they had specifically excised the word “Virgin” from its promotions up to that point and that after the flights and tickets were donated, future mentions of Virgin fell within the stations 5 minutes per hour of allowable sponsorship).

Frank PR, owned by the multinational Photon Group, also had something to gain by plugging Branson. Its UK parent  has worked with various Virgin brands over the years and after ‘Ask Richard’, Frank Australia worked on a Virgin Media UK Ashes campaign in Australia.

Frank MD Myf McGregor told Crikey this morning that the work had been conducted pro-bono and was part of a genuine grassroots effort to save the station.

Responding to criticism over the campaign on Mumbrella, FBi’s Kaldor was blunt:

“FBi appreciated the support – and good sport – of Richard Branson and Virgin, particularly when he agreed to come on air and donate prizes care of Virgin Atlantic and V Australia. Our conduct regarding these prizes and the promotion of Virgin was entirely consistent with our Codes of Practice as a community licence holder.

“The station has emerged stronger than it’s ever been…thanks to our listeners, supporters, donors, volunteers, the Sydney music and arts community, naked, Frank and all the sponsors who contributed to our supporter drive.”

FBi has maintained its good relationship with Branson and Virgin. On the front page of its website, the station lists a major prize of “2 Virgin flights to anywhere in Oz” for its current “Bootycall” promotion.