- Ryanair adopted an irreverent tone online after 2020.
- Insulting its audience was a risky move, but it helped mitigate its flaws and carve a popular niche for itself online, according to a new study Vienna University of Economics and Business.
- But was it all worth it in the end?
The budget airliner Ryanair has been the butt of its fair share of jokes. The stripped-down, bare-bones, super-cheap airline has been derided for its ugly planes, penny pinching, and abrasive-to-non-existent customer service.
Trading on this famous abrasiveness, Ryanair has turned it to its advantage, by going all-in on a spiky form of online humour. In response to people jabbing their bad seating, they have mocked receding hairlines, highlighting the cheapness of the tickets and not the quality of the experience, riffing on passenger expectations, including mocking a man for his baldness, with the quip that he was flying to Turkey for plastic surgery.
A study from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) has found that the Irish budget carrier’s strategic use of sarcastic, confrontational, and edgy online humour, insulting customers and rival carriers, has helped it grow its online following even while it may polarise its audience, and has helped it sharpen its brand identity.
The research, led by Ursula Lutzky, Associate Professor at WU’s Department of Business Communication, analysed a 4.5-million-word dataset of Ryanair tweets posted between October 2020 and March 2023. Over this period, the airline adopted a markedly sharper online persona, embracing social commentary and ridicule to spark engagement in a world that had turned increasingly online in the face of the coronavirus lockdowns.
A shift in tone
Ryanair’s official (then) Twitter account veered far from the usual confines of run-of-the-mill aviation marketing. The airline weighed in on everything from vaccine scepticism and geopolitics (mocking Boris Johnson) to sports, celebrity scandals such as the misadventures of James Corden. Few of these topics had anything to do with flying, but, being so different from regular aviation marketing, and being humorous, they cut through the noise, and became noticed and talked about. In the attention economy, and at a hyper-online time, they drew eyeballs and clicks.
According to Lutzky, the humour often intensified the polarising effect of Ryanair’s posts. Users responded in kind: some applauded the airline’s irreverence, while others accused it of cynicism and opportunism. Either way, engagement levels rose.
“Controversy has become a tool,” the researchers conclude. “For Ryanair, it’s less about universal approval and more about staying in the spotlight. In the digital space, that can be a winning formula.”
From worst to most visible
This represents a sharp turn for a company that spent years mired at the bottom of European customer satisfaction rankings. Before the pandemic, Ryanair had been voted “worst airline in Europe” six years in a row by consumer group Which?. Its reputation for nickel-and-diming passengers and poor service was widespread.
Rather than attempt a traditional charm offensive, the carrier leaned into its notoriety. It amplified what brand strategists call negative emotional branding: playing to irritation, frustration, or resentment, then softening the sting with humour.
Ryanair’s authenticity in its gritty humour, leaning into its cheapness and rough-and-ready service, allowed it to stand out while seeming to stay true to itself. The marketing offered value too: with viewership, you got a laugh. Not a bad trade on the internet. This strategy, the WU research suggests, gave the company visibility well beyond the confines of aviation.
The guilty-pleasure strategy
Marketers have long known that humour in advertising works. Consumers often harbour frustrations and petty grievances with bureaucracy or substandard service, but rarely see them expressed openly by mainstream brands, who are often felt to be obfuscating the truth. When a corporate account voices such sentiments with a wink, it feels exciting, transgressive, and refreshing.
Ryanair’s strategy tapped into this guilty-pleasure appeal. By mocking celebrities, lampooning politicians, and ridiculing rivals, it positioned itself as an unfiltered, real voice which spoke to people in a language they understood and liked, in contradistinction to dull corporate blandness. The sharp-edged jokes put the airline on the same side as its followers.
This approach comes with risks. Humour is subjective, and misjudged jokes can provoke backlash. Yet for Ryanair, the occasional uproar appeared to matter less than the cumulative effect of constant conversation, and frequent attention in the fought-over attention economy, worth any furore. In a noisy online environment, outrage and amusement keep the brand front and centre.
Turning criticism into free advertising
The study also highlights a broader shift across the board in brand communication on the web. In Ryanair’s case, its humour-first approach reframed widespread customer irritation with poor service as a funny part of the Ryanair brand experience, turning a negative into a positive.
The same brashness that drives complaints about baggage fees or cramped seats becomes a gag worth engaging with online, and, simultaneously, softens the sting of the criticism. If Ryanair is in on the joke, at least it’s not pretending its service is perfect, and there is a sense of honesty in that which people appreciate, especially online; they are not being fooled or lied to, which people appreciate. Ryanair managed to flip criticism into free advertising.
The limits of shock
Still, the model is not without constraints. Humorous posts may boost follower numbers and engagement but do not guarantee loyalty or repeat purchases. Going viral is often a short-lived phenomenon, with limited real-world impact. Once novelty fades, the humour risks overshadowing the core product.
Moreover, humour that relies heavily on negativity can backfire if audiences feel personally targeted or fatigued by constant sarcasm. What delights some followers may alienate others permanently. For an airline whose business ultimately depends on mass appeal, that is not a trivial risk.
The balancing act is delicate. Companies that misjudge their jokes can face reputational crisis. It is impressive that this has not been the case for Ryan Air so far, but social media history is littered with brands whose attempts at edginess sparked boycotts over chuckles.
Lessons for other brands
Even so, Ryanair’s case shows how digital strategy can transform a company’s cultural positioning. By turning notoriety into an asset, the airline has embedded itself in conversations that extend far beyond its product category, with the name and logo emblazoned on every popular post. For a low-cost carrier competing on razor-thin margins, free visibility of this scale is highly valuable.
Other firms have experimented with similar tactics. Fast-food chains such as Wendy’s in the US have cultivated online personas built on edgy humour, bantering with competitors, and replying to users with jokes and goads when tagged. Streaming platforms like Netflix have embraced self-deprecating memes. Yet Ryanair’s approach stands out for the severity of its starting point: a brand often reviled, finding ad power in provocation, mockery, and admitting so.
Staying in the spotlight
Ryanair’s edgy humour highlights a new form of brand resilience: one of embracing imperfection, and making a joke out of it, with levity replacing failure. Reputation management once meant firefighting negative perceptions. Today, it can mean amplifying them, provided the amplification is funny enough to keep people engaged.
That does not make Ryanair a model for all companies. Airlines selling premium comfort, or financial institutions promising trust, cannot afford such rude abrasiveness. But for a low-cost carrier already pigeonholed as Europe’s most reviled, the risks of irreverence are relatively low.
The WU research concludes that the strategy, despite its polarising effects, succeeded in growing engagement and embedding Ryanair in broader social and cultural debates. In the end, visibility may matter more than affection. For Ryanair, staying in the spotlight seems to be well worth being the butt of the joke.
By, Thomas Willis
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