Saturday, December 27, 2008

Missed opportunity for Ryanair?

Apologies. It´s been tumbleweeds here for the past week. I´ve had no access to the Internet. Been travelling a fair bit.

Sitting on Ryanair flights had me thinking about their inflight advertising and a possible missed opportunity?

Before we take off, they play ´radio´ ads through their PA speaker system. Presumably they charge brands nicely for the privilage of this captive audience. So I´ve been exposed several times now to an ad for an orange drink called J20 (or something similar. I honestly can´t remember). Ryanair are selling the drink on the flights so the timing of the ad makes sense. The problem is the actual ad itself is grating. Not as bad as Harvey Norman, but still pretty annoying. The result: I promised myself I´d drink anything on the flight but this brand.

Possibly extreme behaviour from me I admit. But surely here was an opportunity for J20 and Ryanair to do something better. If this is a new drink, then presumably they want us to trial the drink, like it and start buying it regularly.

So instead of paying Ryanair for advertising, could they instead pay Ryanair for the privilage of handing out free samples at the beginning of each flight? Ryanair still get their money. J20 get over their first hurdle of customers trialing their drink. And customers are happy with both J20 and Ryanair for a freebie drink.

Everybody wins.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

do ryanair actually care? I really dont think they do Paul. All their ads in flight are annoying, that yellow and blue is annoying, their (overworked + underpaid) staff are annoying. They just want you to spend your money with them and care less about how you feel.

Paul Dervan said...

apologies. You're right. Missed opportunity for the brand. Doubt Ryanair care. But for the drink brand, they could get into the hands of a captive audience, instead of annoying them with a drink.

Paul Dervan said...

...with a drink ad. Sorry:)

Daniel Oyston said...

Ryanair should care because if J20 sales don’t increase in flight then J20 might stop advertising. The idea of free sample is a good idea but then Ryanair are less likely to sell drinks on the flight (unless it was a really small sample).

I assume J20 have ensured that the airports that Ryanair fly out of have all been penetrated with stock.

Mildly amusing story – was in a Pub in UK and my mate was sucking on a J20. Everyone got stuck into him but he said they “were great” … until we pointed out they were non-alcoholic (he just thought they were an alcopop!)