Ryan Air's Social Media Strategy - Insanely Brave or Incredibly Stupid?

I guess Ryan Air is the buzzing brand of the week, getting a lot of attention from bloggers and Twitters. It started when Jason Roe, a freelance programmer, blogged about an error in Ryan Air's booking engine (read the comments as well). He had discovered a way to book a flight for 0.00 pounds. The reaction he got from Ryan Air is what got the buzz started.

Travolution got it confirmed that this comment and others claimed to be from Ryan Air staff, indeed did trace back to the Ryan Air HQ in Ireland. And Kevin May did get a confirmation from Stephen McNamara of Ryan Air that said:

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.

It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

This really got the buzz going getting coverage in many major media outlets. And they didn't stop there. To follow up, they started a Twitter account on @ryanaironline where they kept going in the same voice, shocking people as a Travolution reader Paul Dawson commented:

Are you serious? Can't believe they'd go this far...

Agressive, sexist, offensive to customers... Some recent tweets from @ryanaironline:

"Just reminiscing about the time a guest had terrible, offensive, flatulence. You know that seat right by the loo? Sucks to be you idiots."

"About 2 weeks till the big guy's bday, yeah? It's time to boogie down. Short skirts at the office, ladies."

"Look... it isn't like we aren't meant to have fun here. This is a world we not only don't get, we simply don't care about it."

"that lady actually blackmailed my friend near the end of a flight. She was a tactless bird. Apologies to be sure."

 At first, people thought this was a fake, someone trying to get attention based on Ryan Air's reputation. Then Kevin May of Travolution got Dara Brady head of Marketing at Ryan Air to confirm it was their Twitter account. Later it was withdrawn and now the account has been suspended. It's hard to say if it was real or not, if they chickened out on their strategy.

But it is clear that shocking people is the PR strategy Ryan Air is following. Will Clement of the Bloggers Guide explains how it works for Ryan Air:

"That's the important point here - Ryanair have once again hammered the message home that "our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

A few years ago I met a non executive director of Ryanair, an experienced and respected businessman who was also a non exec of many other companies. He told me that board meetings at Ryanair were colossally different to any other company he worked with. Other companies focus was entirely on customer satisfaction whereas at board level Ryanair's official strategy is "f*ck the customer, if we give them the flights cheap enough, they'll keep coming back no matter how bad we treat them."

All publicity is good publicity is sometimes said. For a noname - this is usually true. But as a continuous strategy, I doubt it. Surely enough, Ryan Air has it's branding clear - being the cheapest. The service people is complaining about is exactly what you're not paying for. But how good of a strategy is flaming your customers just to get publicity and word-of-mouth in the long run? What do you think?

Hjörtur

Comments

[Matt Churchill]

Many of the Social Media guys and girls who will have been monitoring this may very well be in the University - first job demographic who won't have much money to spend on flights if they are looking to go on holiday.

This activity has the potential to completely alienate this section of the Ryanair target audience and could sway them to using a different airline.

If it is part of an overall strategy, it is extremely misguided.

[meznor]

I certainly do not agree that "any publicity is good publicity"... that could be because I was trained in public relations theory that absolutely admonishes such thinking.

I was treated quite poorly by a Saeco distributor in Toronto (http://saecosucks.blogspot.com), and although Saeco (who now also owns Gaggia) may make a good espresso machine, I will never again buy their product. EVER. If RyanAir had a monopoly on cheap flights, maybe they could get away with that crap, but they don't - there are other options. And in the long run, it will not be good for them at all.

If they piss off the wrong person (i.e., if it were me), they might have a following of anti-RyanAir people who take it to the media, to the consumer watchdogs, to whoever they have to take it to in order to destroy RyanAir. Never underestimate a good old fashioned vendetta. :p

[Justin Goldsborough]

bYou know what Ryan Air sound like? The European version of Southwest Airlines. Except, oh yeah, Southwest offers the chepaest flights and has the customer service piece nailed too.

The fact that Southwest can do both shows that all Ryan Air is "far too busy" doing is being shortsighted and alienating cutomers.

[Matt]

I read somewhere that RyanAir is going to charge its customers for using the toilets on their planes. Now thats just ridiculous. Southwest is a million times better than RyanAir.

[Ari Herzog]

News to me, so thanks for sharing. Here's another nugget: @ryanaironline is on suspension.

[Hjörtur Smárason]

@Matt They sure know how to make them selves unattractive. I think they may be overestimating the power of a low price.

@meznor Creating anti-evangelists is quite dangerous, but quite easy at the times of social media.

@Justin I haven't flown with Southwest but I'm familiar with their Twitter account. Which has a much nicer tone than Ryanairs :)

@Matt That's correct. They announced that some time ago. Don't think they have gone through with it though.

@Ari True, it's been suspended, which makes it sound more likely that it wasn't really Ryanair. But what do we know?

[Gab Goldenberg]

President Obama came to Canada recently. He travelled on Air Force One, but Air Canada still lost his luggage!

Common joke, but tells you about people's attitudes towards travelling with AC. I for one will no longer book a flight with them anywhere, unless they're the truly last resort and I MUST fly to my destination.

[Christian Louboutin Pumps]

good idea....thanks for it