FOMO marketing : a case study of Ryanair’s digital marketing strategy

Abstract

The topic under investigation is FOMO marketing, and its effect within the airline industry’s digital marketing strategies nowadays. FOMO has its origins from “humans’ need to belong to a social group”. It is thus is as old as society itself (Beckers, 2014), because there has always been a level of anxiousness about planning around our options and thinking about time spent in a certain way while looking back at the opportunities missed in the meantime. Social media has enabled a sustained amount of information flow satisfying this need, which is why by 2010 FOMO has been unambiguously tied to social media. The constant connection to other individuals through these technologies has proved to be quite addictive, leading humans to feel anxious if their need to belong cannot be satisfied, resulting in what is known as the “Fear of Missing Out” (Hermann, 2011; Przybylski et al. 2013). As this new notion entered our language, one can find different definitions within scholarly literature, as well as popular culture. The term FOMO can be understood in two similar but distinct ways, one being as envy-related anxiety about missed experiences (fear of missing out), as well as that of belonging (fear of being left out). The foremost looks at “missing out” on the actual product or service deal, which may be due to the dynamic environment of rising prices or limited seat availability in the case of air travel, while FOMO can also influence us in the social context through the sense of belonging, as mentioned earlier. Social media magnified the previous effect of magazines, movies and adverts, as to provide a much clearer view into the lives of those seemingly better off. An example of this within the travel industry is an individual’s inner sadness and envy as they compare their life to peers as they scroll through their holiday photos on social media. To increase self-esteem, people can act in a hurry with huge motivation and eagerness to compensate for the gap. Up till now, current work in the area of FOMO has focused more from the psychological perspective, where understanding FOMO has aided in grasping an idea of its impact on one’s well-being, and provide an explanation on negative social behaviour, and learning (Przybylski et al., 2013) as well as suggest different effectiveness levels of such FOMO, with respect to their susceptibility and levels of irritation, anxiousness and feelings of inadequacy (Abel, 2016). Through a profound analysis of Ryanair’s digital marketing strategy, the aim of this research is to understand the effects of FOMO through the use of scarcity messages, and its effects on consumer behaviour. If used correctly, scarcity can potentially magnify the value of a particular product, as the opportunity of purchasing such product is reduced (JWT Intelligence 2011; JWT Intelligence 2012). In addition, the increased importance of FOMO today is portrayed by the great influence of online technologies in the way people shop. Ryanair has been identified as the perfect company to investigate on this concept, as previous research in this regard has focused specifically on luxury brands and products communicating a sense of exclusivity to its potential buyers (Gierl and Huettl, 2010). Thus, we would be looking at how Ryanair, being a low-cost airline, capitalizes on FOMO, and the effectiveness of their callto- actions, as it utilizes quite a number of different scarcity messages within its online content. Thus, the Research Questions for this study are: a) Does FOMO (fear of missing out), have an effect on the attitude towards an advert and purchase intention? b) Are older generations influenced by FOMO as much as younger ones? c) How are Ryanair exploiting FOMO in their content? d) How effective is FOMO inducing content when promoting air travel nowadays?