Marketing for Bootstrappers - the low cost airline way!

The second speaker at the Deccan Herald Advertising Seminar was Warwick Brady, the COO of Air Deccan (India's first low cost airline). He spoke about his marketing experiences with Air Deccan and with his previous employer - low cost airline Ryan Air. The talk was very revealing and gave an account of how great advertising is possible even at no cost! For these low cost airlines, cost control is their lifeline and one of the big reasons why they succeed in undercutting the big established industry giants is because they spend next to nothing on advertising. Maybe a few good lessons for bootstrappers here on how to get noticed in the market, lessons from airlines that truly epitomize bootstrapping - enter an established market and bootstrap their way to grabbing good market share. Here is the summary of what he had to say....
At Ryan Air advertising would transgress decency and normal social behaviour simply to make a noise in the media. The ads displayed here are an example of how far Ryan Air was willing to go to get noticed. The "pissed off with Sabena's high fares?" ad was contested by Sabena in court. Sabena won and Ryan air was asked to take the ad off print immediately. You'd think this hurt Ryan Air. Think again. There were celebrations at Ryan, the ad had given them more publicity in the papers than they could have ever hoped for! They took a swing at British Airways(BA) in another ad which called them "Expensive Bastards!".

Again they were taken to court and again Ryan Air filled the newspapers. At Ryan Air, any PR is great PR. As long as the people keep seeing them in the news they are happy. Because their marketing has a single goal - to make people realise how cheap they are and as long as they can get publicity this cheap, they continue being the cheapest!

You're not going to be able to take on the big guys of the airline industry through the expensive marketing game played by them. You are a startup with not so much money and your biggest advantage is your low cost.

The other thing that Ryan Air and Air Deccan have are gregarious leaders. The low cost airlines symbolise an aggressive little kid pitching against the big men. Having a gregarious leader helps project this image and get noticed in the press events and media reports. These leaders are in the papers for every new trick or price cut that the company releases. They are bold enough to play the dirty game if required and take the big players head on.