'The old-fashioned way of promoting products and businesses has worked for centuries and picture editors are unlikely to let it die out soon,' Mr Branson said after an attack on his style in the Adelaide Advertiser.

Columnist Amber Petty wrote in the South Australian daily last week that Mr Branson 'can't land in a country without paying girls in bikinis to fall all over him at the other end'.

She went on to say he was 'about as sexy as a pair of those socks you get on international flights', and suggested he might be too old to remain the face of his brand.

'As to being an 'old man', yes I am approaching 60, but using someone's age to attack them is perhaps as bad as accusing someone of sexism,' Mr Branson wrote in a letter to the paper.

'The problem, I believe, with her argument is that if the next time I promote a product I line up with three male models the photo won't get into your paper and the new business won't get talked about,' he wrote.

Ms Petty responded by saying: 'The old 'sex sells' line is so dull and so over but if it's apparently working so well, who am I to teach the almighty dog new tricks?'

Ms Petty, who is also a radio broadcaster, was bridesmaid to Australian Mary Donaldson at her 2004 wedding to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. -- AFP