Brand Rants

SAS's odd inflight promotion of Ryanair

This morning I was on a Scandinavian Airline (SAS) flight. The crew made their usual spiel right after take off, reviewing the flight plan, weather en route, etc.. Then the announcement took a strange twist when the purser said he would like to address the recent advertising campaign by Ryanair, the low-budget Irish airline. He then recited a prepared statement. To paraphrase: "As you may have heard, Ryanair has claimed to be the most punctual airline in Europe. This is not true. SAS is the most punctual airline in Europe. Ryanair is number 30."

That's a first for me and I think it is a dumb tactic on SAS's part. It wasn't convincing, just defensive. Further, I'd bet a lot of people on that flight were unaware that Ryanair claims to be Europe's most punctual airline. It was news to me. It seems odd that the media channel through which the message was delivered to me was SAS. And although I find it hard to believe Ryanair is punctual, I'm not 100% confident in SAS's statistical interpretation either. 

The bigger question is when an SAS flight is delayed, what do the flight crew say? "We apologize for the delay today, it was due to late incoming aircraft. While we're on the subject ..."

When David taunts Goliath, it only helps David's cause for the giant to flinch. I'm not saying that SAS should ignore Ryanair's claims, but there is a time and a place for everything. Ryanair's claims should be countered in a way that reinforces SAS's leadership position, not one that undermines it. 

Say what you will about Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary, he knows how to work the media and his much larger competitors. Airline advertising has been a lot more interesting, and frank, since this Irish upstart joined the conversation. Watch this clip to hear another of his assertions. I'd like to hear SAS's inflight retort this claim.

Twitter Mosaic Tool - picture your followers

OK, this may not be the most useful business tool for Twitter, but it is fun. What makes this really cool is that you can click on any one of the thumbnails in your mosiac to learn more about the person. Thanks to Sxoop for inventing this free app.

Can you find your picture below? (Note: Since originally posting this I have removed the mosaic because it was taking too much space.) If so, thanks, this post is dedicated to you. If not, join this wonderful group of enlightened souls HERE :)

(P.S. Having just counted, I see that the app only pictured 790 (44%) of my followers. Sorry if you're not there. I'll find out what the problem is and post in comments.)

(Get your own twitter mosaic here)

Social Media ROI

Back in the day when there were many less media options, you could "turn on" your TV campaign and see results the same day. Approaching social media with the same expectations will lead to disappointment and failure.This presentation by Olivier Blanchard gives perspective to the whole issue of Social Media ROI. It address the fact that social media works on an entirely different timescale than traditional media used to.

Be sure to check out slides 33-35 on the "non-financial impact" of social media. Blanchard emphasizes that you must succeed in this phase to get to a financial ROI. Equally important is the concept of "Transactional Precursors" in slides 49 - 51.

Clients who are not familiar with these two concepts and their contribution to ROI invariably opt to pull the plug on their social media programs prematurely — right about the time when they would have started delivering financial results. 

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.