Ryanair CMO: We don’t care what the Daily Mail says about us
Festival of Marketing: Ryanair is not concerned about continuing bad publicity about the brand despite its efforts to turn around consumer perceptions, chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs has said.
Speaking at the Festival of Marketing in London today (12 November), Jacobs said that the low-cost airline’s market share, website traffic and brand perceptions are all up significantly this year, proving that its efforts to improve customer service are working. Ryanair’s YouGov BrandIndex score has climbed by 27% in the last 10 months, while in September its passenger numbers reached a record 8.5 million.
Jacobs suggested that there remains a degree of snobbishness towards the brand from certain media outlets but argued that the rapid growth of brands like Aldi, Poundworld and Primark demonstrates the importance of low prices to modern consumers.
“I don’t care what the Daily Mail write about us,” Jacobs added. “There’s a lot of vanilla in the airline industry and we want to set ourselves apart from that. We don’t want to be like any other airline.”
Ryanair named Jacobs, who was previously at Moneysupermarket and Tesco, as its first marketing director in January. Over the last year, the airline has introduced a number of customer service improvements including allocated seating, a second carry-on bag and a revamped website.
Outspoken chief executive Michael O’Leary has also toned down his role as chief spokesperson for the company, with brand communications instead coming to the fore. In April Ryanair launched its first pan-European brand advertising campaign across TV, digital and outdoor.
