Ryanair comes up with another low cost idea...what do you think?

Ryanair strikes again...It was not enough to introduce a fee for using toilets, but they were able to come up with something more unexpected. Budget airline Ryanair is now considering making some of its passengers stand during flights in a bid to squeeze as many as 30% more people on board. Customers could elect to pay less (50% of the price) to stand and sit on a small stool with seat belts fastened around them.

The company is currently seeking users opinion on http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=09&month=jul&story=gen-en-090709 on the idea to see whether there's a market potential that could be exploited. Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, has reportedly held talks with US plane manufacturer Boeing about designing an aircraft with standing room (picture below).

Proposed Vertical seating (source: www.ryanair.com)

A spokesman from Ryanair was reported to have said to the MailOnline that the seating would completely adhere to safety procedures. This strategy could lead Ryanair to increase seating capacity by 20% to 30% which could result in a good increase in revenues.

Ryanair does not seem to be the only airline considering this strategy. Chinese airline Spring has also put forward similar plans, estimating it could fit in up to 50% more passengers.

The latest idea of Ryainair is in line with the recent ideas, as it will introduce a charge for the use of toilets onboard as well as planning to make passengers carry their own luggage to the aircraft which would slash about 90% of its baggage handlers. Could there be anything else that wasn't thought of that Ryanair might come up with to reduce costs?

Is it worth to keep a blog?

Who said that blogs and mini blogs are just a waste of time? This could have been the case some time ago however this is not surely the case today...the question today is - How many Twitter followers does it take to get a job?

Best Buy has the answer to this question...The answer is 250. This is the amount that Best Buy require from candidates wishing to apply for a marketing role with them. The ideal candidate should also have a ‘two plus years of mobile or social media marketing experience' and ‘one plus year of active blogging experience', as well as a Bachelor's degree and at least 250 Twitter. So now actually blogging really pays.

While a lot of companies are specifying the need for people to have social media experience, Best Buy is believe to have been the first one to actually ask for a specific minimum number of Twitter followers. Best Buy explains this requirement as Twitter is part of the corporate culture at Best Buy, in fact chief executive Brian Dunn recently encouraged customer and investors unable to attend the company's annual shareholder meeting to follow the proceedings via Twitter.

Dunn in fact has an active twitter account and has currently over 1650 Twitter followers, so he is surely more than qualified for the role. So I'll better start increasing my followers as I'm quite behind when it comes to number of followers :)

Piracy on the decline

Piracy could be on the down turn in the UK as people are turning to streaming sites rather than P2P file sharing. Teenage web surfers are turning their backs to old-fashioned methods of online piracy, including file-sharing and P2P sites, in favour of live streaming, according to new research.

The study by analyst Music Ally found that overall levels of file-sharing are on the decline. Figures show that downloads are down from 42 per cent , to just 26 per cent when it comes to teenagers between 14 to 18 year filesharing once a month.

The overall percentage of filesharing has gone down about a quarter, 22 per cent of those surveyed were regularly filesharing two years ago to just 14 per cent now. This is despite the fact that the percentage of music fans who have ever fileshared has increased, rising from 28 per cent in December 2007 to 31 per cent in January 2009.

The shift to streaming sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Spotify is evident with the research showing that many teens (65 per cent) are streaming music regularly (more than once a month).

Research also shows the comparative volume of pirated tracks to legally purchased tracks has halved since their last survey just over 12 months ago. In December 2007 the ratio of tracks obtained from file-sharing compared to tracks obtained as legal purchases on an ongoing basis was 4:1. In January 2009 the ratio had narrowed to just 2:1.

The new trend is online streaming...this is the way to beat piracy as these services can be licensed (as are YouTube and Spotify) and are easier and more fun to use.

Google to compete directly with Microsoft

The battle of the titans could be on again. After Launching Google Chrome to compete against the market leader Microsoft Internet Explorer and launching Google Docs to compete with Microsoft office, the final assault has been announced...

Google will now be launching its own computer operating system next year. This will take it head to head again with Microsoft and now it's the final fight. Most of the PC's and Notebooks around the world run on Windows, more specifically on Windows XP which is now nearly a decade old and hence i hasn't been developed to run efficiently on the net...Hence Google has seen a window of opportunity...

Modelled around its Chrome browser, Google Chrome OS will be initially developed for small netbook computers, launching in 2010, before eventually rolling out across every platform, including all Windows, Mac and Linux based systems. A report on Marketing, says that Google said the software will be "fast" and "lightweight", with minimal bells and whistles "to stay out of your way", much like its search engine and browser. The Operating system seeks to reduce the frustration inherent in Windows-based computers, such as slow loading times and computer viruses.

As with all other products offered by Google,, Google Chrome OS will largely be internet-based and open source, meaning web developers can create applications for the system, as with Google's suite of online products. The announcement had been made early so as to give developers time to begin working with Google's source code, which is likely to be released at the same time Microsoft launches its new operating system, Windows 7, before year end.

We have to wait and see before we can run into conclusions but it seems that Google has all the intention of wanting to dethrone Microsoft in all areas....will it succeed?

Tesco aiming to add a Bank to its portfolio

What happened of Northern Rock...is the Brisith Government seeking to rebuild the bank or will he try to sell it off with the aim of making a profit?

I found the answer while reading an article on a marketing magazine online...apparently Tesco is reported to be considering a bid for Northern Rock, the bank which was nationalised last year after running into liquidity problems stemming from the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Tesco, the largest supermarket in UK, already offers a range of Tesco-branded financial products, including savings accounts, credit cards and loans.

Opinion at the moment is that consumers see supermarkets such as Tesco and Marks & Spencer as more trustworthy than banks, and these brands are keen to capitalise on the sentiment. The Cooperative group for example already offers banking facilities to its customers. This is not the first attempt by a private company to buy the nationalised bank Prior to this Virgin had tried to buy Northern Rock. The Times reports that it is also considering making another bid, along with private equity firms.


The paper says that prime minister Gordon Brown is keen to sell Northern Rock back into private ownership at a profit before an election and avoid the Conservatives taking credit for any such deal. There are also plans of splitting Northern Rock in different Units and then selling each individual unit indipendently so as to make its sale more attractive.


This would leave "toxic" loans in the hands of the public, with one half of the business responsible for paying back money lent it by taxpayers. The plan must be approved by the European Union

Brands missapropriate famous people image

Brands have always tried to piggyback on famous names to try to make the most out of their image. This should however be done through brand endoresment however this is not always the case...a case in point is a brand of condoms from China...here's the story:-

There apparently is a brand of condoms named after soccer star David Beckham and they've taken the Chinese contraceptive market by storm. It has become an instant hit and with a population of over one billion person and with the child quota in place you can't image otherwise...the sky is the limit when it comes to success...

The condoms aren't being personally endorsed by Beckham, however the makers of said condoms assure users that they "will score in the bedroom like David does on the pitch." This particular brand now sells more than it's competitors.

David's agent Simon Oliveria said, "It's not an official brand."

This is not he first instance of images image of famous people bein used without their consent however most of the time his finishes on a sour note (as compensations kick in place). This was the case of American Apparel who last May where forced to pay $5 million for the blatant misappropriation and commercial use of his image which said damaged his reputation. Brand owners should be very weary of this as it cost money to gone down this avenue especially when doing this in the western world...

Brand Names Lost in Translation

International branding and marketing is very important and crucial to the expansion of a company. Given such importance, companies must take it very seriously and an aspect which has to be thoroughly studied is culture and language. Today I met another classic case of a company creating a brand without actually paying too much attention to this concept. If a brand decides to go international it must also make sure that the brand carries the same message all around and that there are no negative connotations to a brand name.

The latter example related to gas giant Gazprom's new joint venture with Nigerian firm NNPC. The two firms decided to call the joint venture Nigaz. While tit's quite easy to deduce from where the name originates; a conjunction of the words "Nigeria" and "gaz", English speakers seeing the word written down find that the brand name has a strange resemblance to a slang racist word..

Incredulous Twitter users quickly spread the story around, dubbing it a branding fail and prompting a number to suggest Nigaz should adopt a strap line along the lines of "gas with attitude".

As I said previously this is not the first failure at creating an international brand. The most classic example is the Vauxhall Nova, however other examples exist... Mitsubishi was forced to change the name of its SUV model the Pajero in Spain, where the term means 'wanker'. Starbucks opted to stick with the term 'latte' when it launched it's coffee shop brand in Germany, to the amusement of locals. While the word "latte", which translated in English means means 'milk', is translated to German Slang it actually means 'erection'.

A simple translation error meant that a Parker Pen ad run in Mexico ended up promising consumers that it would not "leak in your pocket and make you pregnant", which is at least a more honest promise than Pepsi's "come alive with the Pepsi generation" slogan, which famously ended up meaning "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead" when it was translated to Taiwanese and marketed in Taiwan.

Chinese translations are difficult too and in fact are fraught with difficulties - Kentucky Fried Chicken's "finger lickin' good" managed to come out as "eat your fingers off".

No matter how much we stress the importance of having a brand name or strap line which carries no bad connotations in any language you intend to market in, companies still continue to make this newbie mistake. It's vital to take care of these things although some companies might be tempted to make the mistake on purpose to get some free PR.