That’s the question that Gerry Kelly posed to me on his radio show yesterday on LMFM… Is Michael O’Leary a genius marketer when he calls people Idiots?
Answer – 100% genius.
No question about it.
If you haven’t seen it, Michael O’Leary and Elon Musk had a “spat” over social media on the weekend with Elon calling Michael an idiot.
No stranger to be called an idiot, he quickly got the comms team to create a campaign to sell 100,000 seats at ³16.99, in what he calls a “Ryanair’s Big ‘Idiot’ Seat Sale”. He sent an email to all subscribers and said “Only available for Elon Musk and any other ‘idiots’ on X!!. Book today before Musk gets one!”
It’s brilliant.
Why?
The amount of column inches generated about this seat sale is phenomenal.
But like I always say, you can’t bank a like.
However, O’Leary in the press conference yesterday thanked Elon for the bump in visits to the Ryanair site reporting that it’s been a wonderful boost and that bookings were up 2-3% in the last five days.
Think about this…no advertising spend. The Big Idiot Seat Sale was promoted via email and their social media accounts. And now every radio station, commentator is discussing it.
It’s genius.
But it’s not for everyone.
If Aer Lingus were to call people idiots, then that wouldn’t work. People would be offended. But this is Ryanair and Michael O’Leary who pokes fun at himself as much as anyone else. In the same conference, he compared Michael Martin to Elton John for going on tour..and showed photos of the Taoiseach away on tour.
But lets remember one thing…Michael O’Leary and Ryanair have a mission, a strategy to carry 300 million passengers by 2034. They carried over 206 million passengers last year.
If Michael O’Leary thinks he can get closer to the goal, he’ll do it.
I mentioned earlier that he is no stranger to be called an idiot, he said that he doesn’t need to go outside to be called an idiot. As a Dad to teenage kids, he’s constantly being called an idiot! He said Elon can get in line for calling him an idiot.
Sometimes we think Michael O’Leary doesn’t care…and with being called an idiot, he doesn’t.
But he cares about Ryanair. He cares about the mission and the goal of the company. And he cares about his customer.
At the heart of the spat, is the fact that Ryanair, after 12 months of talks, will not install Starlink Wifi on the Ryanair fleet. I think it comes down to cost…by putting Starlink wifi on board, it will increase the fuel drag by 1-2%. That equates to £100-200 million extra on fuel.
Ryanair believes only 10% of their customers will happily pay for wifi. Starlink believes its closer to 90%.
Ryanair knows that if they take the extra cost of £100-200 million, and people don’t pay for wifi, then fares will have to go up to cover that cost. And they’re not prepared to do that.
Do I think it’s genius? I do for Ryanair.
It’s Michael O’Leary all over – focused on the big goal, not afraid to poke fun at himself and others and get remembered. He’s a big believer in ‘bad publicity sells more seats’.
His YOU Factor is all over it.
And it suits him.
It probably wouldn’t suit the CEO or Aer Lingus or Emirates. They do them. Michael does Michael.
The lesson to be learned is focus on the strategy, capitalise on the opportunity as long as it’s aligned to who you are and what the business believes.
What do you think..Genius or not?
