Charles on… anything that comes along

I think that this story, about Ryanair banning staff from using mobile phone chargers in the company (which would cost it £28.60 per day if every one of its 2,600 staff charged their phone each day) is not, as it might appear, a story about the evil empire of Michael O’Leary. Well, it sort of is. But what’s really going on is more subtle.

What it really is, much more, is a piece of marketing. This ban won’t make any direct difference to Ryanair’s profits, and O’Leary surely knows it.

However it will reinforce the company’s image in the public consciousness as a really tight-fisted, tightly-run organisation. “Wow, they won’t let their staff charge their phones! They must run on fresh air! They must be really cheap!” Thus a carrier in a cut-throat market, which is aiming to push out its close rival easyJet, manages to get a story in the national media which completely ignores all its rivals, while focussing attention on its own organisation.

You’ve got to admit, that’s pretty sharp marketing. Stelios must be fuming.

It’s the same technique used by the supermarkets as Christmas approaches, when stories about how chickens/cucumbers/Christmas trees grow faster/bigger/wider when you play Beethoven/Black Sabbath/Christmas carols to them abruptly appear in the tabloids and even some of the more credulous nationals. And has anyone ever checked the story out for themselves? Are you kidding?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• MPs baffled by new technology: "jamming will stop happy slapping". No it won't (26 June 2005; score: 58.66%)
• Well, I laughed: "you have been evicted from the Big Iranian House" (4 April 2007; score: 37.51%)
• The internet? Just a fad, don't worry. Your job doesn't depend on it (30 September 2004; score: 31.79%)

In the light of other things I’ve written here, I guess - for the sake of fairness, and accuracy - that I should acknowledge a couple of things about Paul Thurrott’s more recent series of things about Tiger.

To wit: first, he’s done well to get hold of a copy of the OS (perhaps the GM, or a build just a couple of versions short of it).

Second, the explanations he’s been giving of new features such as those in Mail, and his points about the interesting calculation of Tiger’s “200 new” features, are valid. He’s good at explaining new twiddles, like Mail version 2’s method of dealing with photos or the nifty-looking “burn folders” feature.

The latter, of course, are the sort of thing that you’re good at when you write books explaining stuff to people ve-ry sim-ply. Not quite the same as getting a perspective on where something fits in the wider picture, which I still think he’s rubbish at. Nor, indeed, keeping any sort of perspective on anything (as in his daft defence that Microsoft first used the phrase “it just works” - with Windows 95, because that OS did right? ..right? I mean nobody ever described it as “Plug-and-Pray”.. um.). “Industry analyst” isn’t a phrase I’d use in a hurry about him.

But, you know, might as well get it said. Since I feel sure I’ll do a Tiger review once it’s released.

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• Sky+ fixed.. but mysteries remain. Like, what's the USB socket for? (1 September 2005; score: 27.18%)
• Two techie things I'd like to do but can't - can you? (27 June 2005; score: 23.91%)