Ryanair always seemed like an example of an anti-brand - rejecting every contemporary branding maxim in favour of an approach driven purely by price (on the surface) and destinations.
The customer experience with them is abysmal. From the moment you get to their website, you're inundated with desperate sales / profit-driving tactics. Fair enough, given their business model, but it becomes a game of Cat and Mouse... You vs. Them... You hate them by the end of it, and you're still a month away from getting on their plane.
And then the game of Cat and Mouse continues - excess baggage, drinks on the plane, check-in - all conspiring to prise more money out of you.
Somehow you forget the hatred the next summer just enough to consider them again.... until now.
It seems their model is struggling for longevity... there are only some many dupes who'll be treated like this for so long...
I find it massively reassuring that there really is more to a brand's success than a few product features - ie being cheap and flying to places no-one else does.
Eventually, being underhand and self-centred rather than customer-orientated and transparent, will backfire. And people's credit-crunch-driven holiday cutbacks have only catalysed the process.
The one trick pony needs to adapt.
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