Cover story - Ryanair on TikTok

Airlines are constantly looking for ways to reach different audiences and demographics online, and as a result, TikTok is increasingly coming into the frame in airline and social media departments.

Our cover story looks at Ryanair, the biggest airline on TikTok, and the lessons we can learn from them.

Back in December 2020, YouTuber Swiss001 reviewed Ryanair’s TikTok account, with a video headlined, “Ryanair’s TikTok account has gone crazy.” At the time Ryanair’s TikTok had 45k followers.

In his video post, Swiss01 said that “things really started to roll” in July 2020, when Ryanair was advertising the fact that it was flying again after the first Covid lockdown.

The first TikToks featured Ryanair cabin crew getting ready for their flights, which Swiss01 said, “are not bad for an airline.”

Fast forward to April 2022, and the account has grown to 1.6 million followers, making Ryanair the biggest airline on TikTok.

The Daily Mail even claimed that the constant stream of funny memes has got the LCC a following in the USA and Far East, leading to demands for Ryanair to set up shop across the Atlantic.

The short meme videos, which also occasionally appear on YouTube, are to a Generation X-er like me bizarre to the point I felt that I was almost hallucinating - in particular regards the Ryanair talking plane (a 737 with a moving cartoon face and moving lips), which has become a staple of the channel.

However, I’m not the target audience, and Millennials and Generation Zers who consume TikTok are - they are also the target market for Ryanair’s cheap fares..

Also, the way that Ryanair trolls other brands crosses the generational divide.

For instance, United Airlines came out with a TikTok that looked very similar to Ryanair’s talking plane. A number of comments below the United post then pointed out the similarity.

Ryanair responded with a TikTok of its own, taking aim at the US airline, and getting 37k likes to the initial 16k in the original United post.

Similarly, Ryanair took aim at Virgin Atlantic calling it ‘mid’ (slang for mediocre).

Ryanair then removed the video and instead posted another one which mixes in characters from Grand Theft Auto, and a spoof text message exchange with a “manager” who asks what ‘mid’ means.

Another video, which has notched up over 11 million views, was headlined, “Can I get every brand who has TikTok to comment on this for no reason.”

Brands duly chimed in, including TikTok itself. Alaska Airlines left a comment saying “We flew in as soon as we heard the news you were waiting on a fantastic airline to arrive.”

Turning customer complaints into memes

Meanwhile other TikTok videos talk up the airline’s no frills service, to the point of making fun of passengers who complain.

One uses one of the most popular songs on TikTok - “Oh no, our table” by Shayal (which is in 600k+ TikTok videos), while Ryanair’s talking plane jokes about people who pay €9.99 for a flight and complain about legroom.

Another uses the track ‘Umm Yeah’ (which is in 200k+ other TikTok videos) to do a virtual eye roll about people who expect to get a free suitcase checked in when on a ten euro flight.

The fact that Ryanair’s TikTok so aptly uses tracks and memes that appear elsewhere on the social network shows that the team behind it knows what they are doing.

In fact, Ryanair’s TikTok has become a big enough sensation to make the channel’s editor and moderator, Lily Rafferty, the subject of a piece in the Irish Sun.

The Sun directly drew on Lily Rafferty’s LinkedIn post where she talked about her sixth month anniversary at the airline.

That post has itself notched up almost 150 comments praising her, with one saying that her work was now on hundreds of marketing decks around the world.

In the post, Lily says, “TikTok is a fast moving app so keeping up with trends and making them on brand for Ryanair is crucial. Living and breathing the app has allowed our tiktok to gain over 140 Million views over the past 6 months.

“I love getting to use #GenZhumor to reach and connect with such a large audience. Having a presence on TikTok is vital and I would encourage any brand to find their niche.”

Why we like this campaign

It took me several hours to figure out what was going on with these memes and little videos, as they are clearly not meant for me. Now I think that they are a work of genius.

In an old agency in my PR / advertising days, we had a rule that you could never recommend a medium or channel that we weren’t using personally.

And here the Ryanair team clearly gets it. Their use of songs (especially trending audio, which means it’s more likely to be picked up) and cultural references shows that they understand and consume TikTok on a personal level.

This is then reflected by the quality and popularity of the videos.

Most importantly, what they produce is true to the brand. This kind of content would probably result in panicked expressions and phone calls in a lot of airline boardrooms, but Ryanair gets away with it, because it’s Ryanair.

After all, the airline’s founder has a history of making outrageous comments that inevitably translate into media coverage.

Not every airline can be a Ryanair, not should it be.

But every airline has a distinct brand voice and TikTok is a medium where it should find expression, with the minimum amount of censorship from higher ups who don’t always understand the memes in question or target audience.

After all, the Chinese owned social network is only set to grow further and is set to rank as the third largest social network this year, behind Facebook and (Facebook / Meta owned) Instagram. That’s the kind of medium any brand, let alone airline, should have a strategy for.