the best thing you can do with environmentalists hello everybody welcome back to another episode of business blaze this one I can feel from the weight of this trip that it is a long run so we're just gonna jump in if you're new here what happens is Danny and writes me a script I read it and react to it and share my thoughts and then Sam the video editor he adds in some memes afterwards and some music and some cuts so it looks a little bit more professional than these shambles that it would otherwise be but it's long let's jump in oh it's vaguely about business this one is about ethic PR disasters let's do it one of the most infamous most spectacular public relations gaffes ever to hit the UK headlines concerned a mr. Gerald Ratner back in 1991 this is the dude who rather jewelry shop and he said this stuff was basically he was like it's terrible I don't know why people buy it it's a complete ripoff it didn't go well for him I assume Danny's about to tell all of us this so I'm gonna stop talking one of the most interesting things about it is it was just so utterly unnecessary and it came right out of the aquamarine occasionally that happens this is business blaze if you're new as I always say at this point you're probably wondering what the [ __ ] is going on this is business blaze we blaze the business Gerald Ford had taken on the reins of Ranas it doesn't say Gerald Ford it just says Gerald's I think I recently recorded a video about Gerald Ford so yeah Gerald had taken the reins of ratner's family business in 1984 transforming a small low-end jewelry business with just a hundred and thirty UK stores into a small jewelry business Danny it's got 130 stores house is like how would you describe my business in microscopic Simon it barely exists shifting cheap or high-value jewelry across 200 2,500 stores and generating annual sales of 1.2 billion pounds having earned himself the title of the Sultan of bling Gerald himself admits that things were going so amazingly well that when a business analyst asked him what could potentially go wrong he couldn't think of a single feasible response what a legend he was wrong his confidence was misplaced spoiler alert maybe the question was playing on his mind for a while because just a year or two later he'd managed to cook up the perfect disaster a scenario during a private business dinner for the Institute of Directors held at the Royal Albert Hall fancy Gerald made a speech to four thousand attendees which started off with him boasting about how it turned around the fortunes of his family business and was now raking in a record profits but then he's through a bit of a surprise self-effacing humor to keep the crowd interested dangerous territory it's like if I business plays I feel as a bit of self you know a facing humor in it but it's like if I was running a major corporation I wouldn't do this unless I was Elon Musk then apparently totally okay he talked about how ratna's now celled cut glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray all for under a fiver five pounds that's insanely cheap he mentions the people often ask him how can you sell this for such a low price Gerald's to which she replied that his usual response was because it's total crap Gerald also commented how one of ratner's high-value earrings was cheaper than a Marks and Spencers prawn sandwich but probably wouldn't last as long well at least it's Marks and Spencers Gerald I mean you could have been like it's an Asda sandwich then it would be Asda prawn sandwiches sounds risky to be honest the speech went down a storm with the crowds but his quotes didn't quite have the same cord when they appeared on the first page of a UK newspaper the next day alongside this headline as crap neurs and you're you 22 karat gold Mokes very good newspapers you can't help feeling just a bit sorry for the sultan of bling he was just trying to raise a chuckle at what he assumed was a private dinner and he didn't have that tomorrow would be a very slow news day on a busier day the newspaper editors wouldn't have been so did so desperate to inflate a story and his misguided attempts at humor would probably have just remained buried forever and then we wouldn't have the joy for this episode would we Danny and everyone at home who is oh the level of joy you must be having right now is just high as it pans out Ratan has lost 500 million pounds of value overnight and Gerald was eventually fired from his own family business the following year after which ratna's was rebounded as Signet the phrase doing a Ratna has this since become shorthand for a mighty slip of the tongue which quickly smashes the public perception of your company into tiny cheap glass shards I'm recording this just after Elon Musk was like test the stock seems overpriced doesn't it on Twitter it's like Elon no did you got a find like 50 billion dollars or something a couple of years ago for say some like Mad Ants crater don't you know I know your mega rich but 50 million is a lot right but there are plenty of other examples of respectable ish corporation company corporate corporations going wildly off-script with their PR or seizing control of potentially damaging situation and somehow making it about a billion times worse oh my god ah I know it's bad and like we should all thrive off positivity and joy but I these business Blazers are more enjoyable when we're absolutely ripping into someone or at least I find them more enjoyable torches of freedom cigarettes must be cigarettes right the father of public relations is a title often attributed to Austrian American press agent Edward Bernays who launched his own public relations business in New York in 1923 of course public relations has been around in one form or another since ancient times the building of the Egyptian pyramids can largely be seen as an early exercise in political public relations hammering the point home that the current leader was top dog all right then but Edward was one of the first pioneers to help define today's understanding of modern public relations practice can you imagine if business plays had to go through a PR to follow people you're like Simon we've had a look at the latest business plays and it makes you look stupid and your entire brand is built on being smart I'll be like some mash that publish button PR they're all fired Simon that's not gonna look good you're fired Oh in the same year that he launched his new business he also wrote the world's first book on public relations called crystallizing public opinion which outlined his profession for the first time and he taught lessons on the subject at New York University Edward was born in Vienna but his family moved to the States in the 1890s he's actually a double nephew of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud what the [ __ ] is a double nephew oh is that where they were so incestuous back in the day that you can be a nephew somehow on both sides to ball my I'm not gonna think about that too much we'll try and work it out because it's all a weird headache isn't it like I did a video about ancient Egypt recently I was like yeah somehow it's her husband and what she says wife and mother at the same time and sister or something and I was like I'm leaving in a try but you know it's not right it took me a while to work out the meaning of a double fu oh okay here we go and whether it got Danny and I same page and whether it involved incest somewhere along the line but I think we're on safe ground Sigmund Freud was the brother of Edwards mum then and the husband of Edwards dad's sister Danny this is as clear as Bing mud to be honest let's move on after working as a journalist and press agents but what we can take away from this is that Sigmund Freud was an incestuous spa after moving after working as a journalist and press agent Edward struck major success with his innovative new public relations company in the 1920s and one of his early notable triumphs was convincing America to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast oh I vaguely know this story his attention turns to the backhoe in 1927 when he was hired by the makers of Chesterfield cigarettes which are still around today these companies it's in 1927 they were killing people allegedly wait you could definitely say this about tobacco right like I'm Jessica very like Simon it doesn't cause cancer and we're suing you for saying it does no cigarettes in general definitely not Chesterfield cigarettes those things are probably extremely healthy so cigarette companies have been killing people since 1927 it's nearly a hundred years later and that is still being solved today wanted across the campaign which poked funds of their art right on that their arch rival Lucky Strike cigarettes that campaign worked so well that the makers of Lucky Strike promptly poached Edward and got him to work for their side instead the problem facing tobacco companies in the 1920s is that they were only really targeting half of the population the men it's the men it's definitely the men it's not the women or yeah sales of cigarettes amongst males had soared after the first world war i Hannah Risa I haven't researched this bit properly come on Danny while I paying you for but I would guess that that's because after the fighting had stopped for the day usually about 7:00 p.m. I would imagine all the opposing military forces got together down to the nearest pub for a chat over a pint and a cigarette and a pee and pie in peace supper alright okay after about bit more digging into the trenches it turns out that US soldiers were given a cigarette in their raps cigarettes in their ration packs so the ones that came back alive were all addicted to nicotine it's like thanks for going off to war here's some free cigarettes you know the war didn't kill you so well these might eventually slowly painfully and comfortably also expensive and they make you smell cigarettes back in those less enlightened times women will largely only allowed to smoke in the privacy of their own homes allowed wait kind of like today like you're already smoking in public or in restaurants or shops anymore just like in the supermarket having a cigarette is so absurd to us now but it was so ordinary recently it wasn't generally seen as very ladylike and we're still suffering from the signs of social stigma with being exclusively associated with full and women and prostitutes what is a fallen women I don't know Edward was paid a fortune 25 thousand dollars which is just under four hundred thousand dollars in today's money to open up the Lucky Strike strike market to women for the first time and his first strategy was to run a campaign which focused exclusively on thin women lighting up a cancer stick allegedly four hundred thousand dollars doesn't seem like a ton of money to lead a campaign that is essentially going to open up a brand cigarettes to half of the the other half of the world that seems like a good deal if you can do it the suggestion seemed to be that you could easily lose weight in no time by replacing meals with cigarettes which I'm sure is true but definitely not recommended yes business blaze I mean we're not a health channel I'm not a doctor a colleague of health advice but don't do that okay then he hits upon what he felt was a much more powerful strategy after consulting with a student of his uncle Sigmund he's partly to blame for all of this Edward came around to the idea that Lucky Strike cigarettes could be seen as torches of freedom which would symbolize freedom from male oppression you don't hear them trying to do that today you know with the old like feminism movement and stuff it's like how shall we signal that we are free from men cigarettes on the 31st of March 1929 he arranged for a young woman called Bertha hunt to step out into the patch grounds of Fifth Avenue during the New York City Easter Day Parade and defiantly light up a Lucky Strike she was then followed down Fifth Avenue by ten other Wynn and each one of them proudly puffing away on a torch of freedom during a march deliberation a little bit irony here isn't it but like they're being paid to do something that is hurting them while they marched up freedom I'm not sure but it doesn't it feels strange crucially Edward had already tipped off the press that this was going to happen so the next day's newspapers were full of photographs of this shocking scandal that unfolded in full view of hordes of innocent by passers caught up in the horror American journalist and feminist Ruth Hale voiced a strong declaration of approval women light another torch of freedom fight another sex taboo wait how's a cigarette sex to be after the initial outrage had died down a little and people slowly began to accept that women had just as much a right to coffin splatter over a generic cigarette definitely not a Lucky Strike than a man sales of the cigarettes saw a huge jump in the next decade in fact it could be argued that this was a glorious PR triumph and Edward had certainly an't a substantial fee before the torture freedom march only 5% of cigarette purchases were made by women but eventually this climbed to 33% over the years to come but was it a hollow victory not sure how much honour and integrity we can find in shifting millions of packets of death sticks in the name of feminism agreed it would seem even that Edward Bernays himself regretted his actions after the harmful effects of smoking became more widely known following his retirement he devoted much of his time to campaigning on behalf of the anti-smoking lobby it does seem surprising that people weren't a bit more early into light well inhaling this lighting thing of smoke is not I don't understand like that seems like it's just so obviously bad I guess they didn't know how bad but it can't be good right and although he's now recognized as one of the most influential Americans of the 20th century Edward didn't seem too keen on how the PR industry evolved over the years an industry that he helped to define on his 100th birthday good for him I guess he didn't get too many free cigarettes from lucky in 1991 just four years before his death he Cohen said the public relations today is horrible and he doped any nitwit any idiot can call himself a public relations practitioner still at least enough to be a ripe old age I bet he didn't very smoked generic death sticks Danny and I same page next up top man customers are all hooligans I don't know if you know but top man is like relatively rest top man is a low-end clothing store in the UK I'm not sure if it even exists it's been a long time since I've been to one here's an entry which could have potentially reached ratna's level of wreckage but long-term damage was swiftly grrrrrr tails by a more considered follow-up exercise in PR top man is a British retailer of men's fashion a very familiar sight on the high streets of the UK boasting over 250 stores with 78 stores in the US and about a hundred more scattered throughout the world although top man has enjoyed success for over 30 years it's not actually doing terribly well at the moment as its parent company the Arcadia group is currently undergoing financial difficulties and scandals which are probably worth a business plays episode of their own if you think so dear audience let me know below and we can maybe get that made up I don't know I don't know what this scandal is because I don't really read the news but the parent groups current dire situation has nothing to do with a surprising interview the top men's brand director David Shepherd gave to the magazine menswear in 2001 Shepherd had played a major role part in ramping up the profits of the company during a little slump in the 1990s and he was asked a simple enough question about why the store had dropped its trademarked tight sleeveless t-shirts in favour of a more macho and laddish selection now I'm no brand director of fashion but I reckon that even I could have had a stab of providing a reasonably logical answer to this one following the rise of the Britpop scene in which bands such as Blur and Oasis had dominated the charts the UK had witnessed the rise of a new lad subculture III nobler in Oasis I can imagine how those dudes dress but I've never heard of the new lad subculture that essentially went meant that men went through an extended period where they could avoid pretending to be intellectual and sensitive and instead get away with binge drinking and blatant sexism it's like look I'm not a drunk sexist it's I'm identified of the new lad culture the answer is emerging you back I don't think new lad culture would really fly in 2020 against this emerging new backdrop top man had clearly re-evaluated its product lines and moved away from the stiff and smart stuff to cater for the more casual and laid-back laddish trends like [ __ ] clothes for binge drinking in and being a sexist David Shepherd revealed two menswear magazine that his new target customer was the everyday eighteen-year-old lad he cares about what he wears but he doesn't want to stand out things may have been a fine if it left it at that but the ends of you have pushed for deeper clarification so Shepherd came up with football hooligans or whatever fitted sleeveless t-shirts were not going to work for this religion laughs oh yeah the brand director and you admitted your mate football hooligans don't identify as football hooligans I assume it's not gonna surprise any of you to learn that I don't really know any after apparently conceding that is core customers with football iggins Shepherd wins on do we explain the top men no longer gave much floor space to suits very few of our customers after wear seats to work he says they'll be interview or court case oh dude you can't say that anyway you definitely can't say that if you're the guy selling them the suits dude or the not suits in the aftermath of the car crash interview the share price of top men dropped 1.5 percent that's it I'd sell that so hard and industry experts noted that the top man brand would do well to survive this exercise in retail suicide in which the company was appearing to insult their own customers although people do comment that business someone left a very upvoted comment the other day was like business plays where I come to hopefully learn something not learn something and then get insulted but a spokesperson although I don't expect you to buy anything except for my merch buy my merch so ironically also clothes oh I am this guy [ __ ] but a spokesperson for the Arcadia group quickly managed to pull off quite a successful rescue operation when he explained to the press that Shepherd was a fun-loving nightclubbing loud himself and had simply been trying to show an affinity with his customers rather than purposefully offending them although he is the brand director of a major company so easy really but David Shepherd didn't suffer in the way of negative consequences he went on to receive a promotion to chief operating officer of the Arcadia group of the parent company our role is healed until 2015 before taking early retirement so that he could spend more quality time down at the football stadium chucking beer in the faces of unsuspecting pitch this is the end of that one next up oh my god this is way more serious and dark the BP oil spill some PR exec you exercises probably a little more straightforward to deal with than others in the case of the 2010 oil spill disaster at Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico it's fair to say that the operators BP British Petroleum had their work cut out to try and clean up both the figurative and very literal mess yes it was a disaster I just made an actually serious video about Deepwater Horizon on my other channel Geographics why am i pointing over there because that over there on the other side of the studio is where I film Geographics I might link to it below it might be a rickroll that's the risk you take when you watch business plays it wasn't just a case of a mildly embarrassing corporate slip-up in which everyone got a bit of a go on their faces this was the biggest environmental disaster of all time tonight it's like yeah the previous guy was like year our customers a kind of hooligans this is the greatest environmental disaster ever feel like we took it up a notch Danny the massive explosion at Deepwater Horizon was the result and the resultant spillage of 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico kills 11 workers thousands of marine animals and protected species close down fishing and tourism and destroyed over 12,000 jobs at least the cleanup created some jobs all the PR wizards it'd be like Simon as the chief of PR for BP what do you think of this disaster well obviously it's very unfortunate that the BP oil disaster has happened and that we have killed thousands of marine animals but on the plus side a lot of them are just covered in oil and we're creating jobs you know there are thousands of people out there using toothbrushes on weird birds that we can't identify because they're covered in our oil um it's good for the economy it's difficult to see where BP could possibly even begin to try and put a positive spin on this one obviously it's not Danny job creation and the truth is they shouldn't even have tried probably not like what I just said that was sarcastic I wouldn't recommend it this was surely a time for holding up your hands admitting a disastrous failure and clearly demonstrating to the world that you're gonna try and do everything within your power to fix this but BP decided to adopt an initial strategy of playing down the severity of the crisis and deflecting the blame the company claimed to reporters that the oil rig was leaking a thousand barrels of oil a day but it was later estimated that the figure was closer to 5,000 barrels of oil a day even when this new estimation had been revealed to the public the best BP could do is revise their original figure to somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 there was no lie is it it's just 5,000 in fact it's somewhere between none there is no disaster and 5,000 barrels a day leaking into the ocean well you're not lying in fact later still it was revealed that the true figure was closed at a 62 thousand a day well it turns out you were lying just accidentally if you lie accidentally is that still a lie allegedly I don't know oh the company was very keen to remove their name from the disaster which was usually referred to as the BP oil spill by the likes of President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency aware that this may cause some minor damage to the brand BP stubbornly insisted on only referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of course that's super smart you wouldn't be like yeah our oil spill BP that's probably not something you want to claim ownership of BP also appeared to go out of the way to suggest that they weren't entirely to blame for the disaster the very first press release on the matter emphasized very strongly that the oil rig itself belonged to drilling contractor Transocean limited to whom BP were nobly offering their full support again that is pretty smart but you know the press is not stupid they're gonna see through it if that's the case there's no doubt that BP held full responsibility for cleaning up the mess but they were often communicating a message that they were cleaning up somebody else's mess rather than their own interesting and just to be clear on that translation didn't come out of this with flying colors either the hostile finger-pointing between the two companies continued all the way to congressional testimony which President Obama would describe as a ridiculous spectacle its congressional testimony did you really expect it to be anything other than a ridiculous spectacle every time I've watched that it's like what's the point that's just a joke right the explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico never should have happened and I'm deeply sorry that it did the district court would ultimately rule the BP should accept 67% of the blame for the accidents with 30% going to Transocean and a further 3% going to Halliburton the company responsible for cementing the oil well that sprang a leak that is remarkably specific I guess that's - like assigned damages somehow I don't know the but it was CEO of BP Tony Hayward he perhaps comes out of this the worst just prior to the accident Hayward had slashed VP's public relations operations - in a bid to save money but I deeply regret that it's like wow nothing ever goes wrong a BP let's just fire everyone in PR the next week Oh get them back get them back and they weren't super motivators the blaze looking very much in suave CEO mode he never really cut of sympathetic figures he strolled up Anela beaches that had been drenched in his company oil company's oil and talked to distraught fishermen whose jobs and livelihoods had been wiped out by the disaster but he wasn't yelling at journalists stop taking photographs he was stressing to the press that his company would only pay for legitimate claims from businesses and residents who had suffered from the crisis if you don't want to be photographed walking along the oily beach why are you on the oily beach you don't have to go there you're the CEO it's not gonna make me feel better than the CEO of the company comes out and apologizes to me in person just pay me give me my money when pushed further on this he simply responded this is America come on we're going to have a lot of illegitimate claims we all know that dude however brats Hayward's defining PR blunder was the moment he explained to reporters why was working so hard to resolve the crisis I want my life back he blurted out our notes only River being generous to Tony Hayward for a moment I don't blame him at all of having inner thoughts and feelings on how his life appeared to have rapidly turned douche but considering the scale of this environment of tragedy he must surely have known that this was not a good time to bleed to the press about how personally inconvenient he was finding all of this it's like dude people's businesses have been destroyed people indict and you're like oh it's really a bit of a hassle for me as CEO I have to deal with all of this I just want to go to expensive lunches with the other executives COFF Tony later is the BPOs but I hope you get fired later as the VP özgür continue to wreak havoc Hayward was spotted enjoying a very jolly and public day off from whining to the press to see his expensive boat participate in the G the JPMorgan round the island yacht race off the Isle of Wight dude President Obama's chief of staff declared the take would appear to have committed yet another in his long line of PR gaps while Obama himself commented Hayward certainly would never be offered a job working for him he's a CEO of a major company like he doesn't necessarily want to come and work for you he's personally gonna get paid less if he does and he cares about money because I don't know I do I feel that yeah he's going to do this boat racing thing well it was a bit of a weird thing to say I want my life back we can't I don't I do feel there's a bit unfair to criticize him for having a day off like when the president goes and plays golf and as long as he's not doing it like all the time I don't feel that we should create it like but there's a war going on it's like yeah but look we all need a day off because that always we're gonna be at our work Tony Hayward resisted the inevitable calls to resign and a BP press release confirms that he's led the full confidence and backing of the Board of Directors within the space of just a few months he had been ousted from its position as CEO so someone didn't probably the backlash from him being a [ __ ] it although he may have regretted slashing his PR allegedly although he may have regretted is slashing his PR operations just before the disaster it's difficult to see how even the strongest PR campaign in the world could have helped BP with this one the best approach may have been ridiculously and refreshingly simple don't even really try brace your company for the full force of the hitting the fan accept full responsibility and accountability and devote every available resource to sorting out the mess instead of pointing the finger at others and desperately trying to save a reputation which is beyond rescue let's just hope the Tony got his life back the poor chap all my sympathy for Tony is relatively low actually I have to say it's pretty low now the blaze comes to one of my favorite topics Ronna Ryan and Michael O'Leary finally normal I mean if you're if you're new here ripping on Michael O'Leary's a little bit of a business plays hobby of mine finally we can't have a video about epic PR gaps without at least giving a brief mention to a certain mr. Michael O'Leary one of the wealthiest businessmen in Ireland in the notoriously outspoken CEO of cheap airline Ryanair Danny has used other words in here to describe Ryanair which I won't use but I'll leave up to your personal imagination especially those of you who are flying flown with Ryanair the comedy is a reputation for delivering exceptional customer service treating employees in the best possible way dishing out really minimal excess charges at the top drop of a hat and responding with kindness and thoughtfulness to any criticism of them it also has a reputation for being incredibly expensive which is why the airline is essentially a massive success story the only bit I mean massive success story yes the rest of that just imagine other words you know that might be more positive or perhaps more negative of what I just said I don't know I'll leave it up to your imaginations allegedly at the risk of taking a digital pelting from business blaze viewers oh Sh I have to admit that there's a part of me which can't help but admire him in a way Oh Danny you and I are on the same page like Ryanair might be the best airline ever again use your imagination but my I'm Michael genuinely not using any weird language here Michael O'Leary is a pretty exceptional business dude make no mistake he's an arrogant and ruthless guy guy and probably one of the last people in the world and wanna share a pint with that you have to admire his sheer brutal honesty and the way he makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't give a flying what you might think yeah if Michael O'Leary ever saw this video he'd be like I don't give a [ __ ] I'm rich [ __ ] and I've got a massively successful company and I could buy you Simon and Michael listen if you want to buy business plays I'm open to offers mate unlike the greasy CEOs of other companies who invest a lot of time in car crafts a completely disingenuous communications designed to hit the right tone Michael O'Leary appears to just say whatever the hell he likes like it or lump it with one when one customer and mrs. McLeod took to social media to complain about Ryanair she received support from over half a million users MacLeod had checked in online and arrived at the airport with four members of her family but hadn't bothered to print out the boarding passes all right looks like you know you have to print out the boarding passes I have it on your phone because otherwise you're gonna have to pay everyone knows this it's just how it works you can complain all you want but it's pretty clear what the rules are and it is to save money although the fees are insane I have made this mistake I didn't like it but I know I'm in the wrong and also if I want a company that's gonna print out my boarding pass for me when I get to the airport look I could pay more expensive prices for a ticket this is the first ever business place where I have defended Ryanair because you know complain all you want it is bloody cheap she was shocked to discover that Ryan I was charging 60 euros to print out each piece of paper on her behalf adding up to a grand total of 300 euros for a whole family this kind of online complaint would usually both be most likely handled by a company social media team but only really decided to give the matter his own personal touch good man he replied we think mrs. McLeod should pay 60 euros to fix she wrote to me last week asking for compensation as a gesture of goodwill to which we have replied politely but firmly Thank You mrs. McLeod but it was your Kaka yeah this is MacLeod this sucks but yeah he's not wrong is he and if they just I'd like some compensation as a gesture of goodwill off have you I've recently been watching that TV show six session I could imagine the guy what's his name the the patriarch of the family it just be like [ __ ] off he went on to claim that 99.98% Ryanair passengers managed to print out their boarding passes in advance so those who don't we say quite politely oh [ __ ] [Music] yeah I'm in that 99.98% you know 99.9% of the time after Iceland's of so that that volcano that erupted that that no one can pronounce in 2010 and briefly disrupted European air travel some customers were seeking a refund for their canceled Ryanair flights I'm sure there's something in the conditions which is like acts of God and also get travel insurance this isn't Ryanair's fault also I've got a Ryanair flute flight coming up to Morocco in like a week I'm not gonna be a game a flight because now there's coronavirus everywhere I can't leave the country you know who I'm not pissed off at Ryanair I haven't even tried to get it to be fair it's like it's so little money that I just don't care but if I did care I don't I wouldn't be pissed off I I wouldn't be it is what it is and I have an insurance policy I'm not gonna claim on it because it's a pain in the arse and it's like I don't know I don't even remember how expensive it is O'Leary made his feelings clear on the idea of giving out refunds for a situation beyond his airlines control you're not getting a refunds so [ __ ] off he warned customers we don't want any of your sob stories what part of no refunds so just a stand however European law disagreed with them on this policy and you don't begrudging Li have to cough up those refunds in the end well maybe I could get a refund from Ryanair uh I guess O'Leary was it's gonna be really difficult I think that's the thing like the European law might be like yes I mean you're absolutely entitled to a refund and Ryanair will be like all right Simon hold on hold on we've got these forms they have to fill out so what you need to do stuff start here name address passport number name of first pet but these are the these are the old business plays scripts there's a lot of them these days just because they're here O'Leary was always honest about what the customer should expect from a typical ryanair flight and this is the thing like he can say all these things and it doesn't matter because you you can say like oh I'm never flying Ryanair en Michael O'Leary personally can you the CEO of a company personally told me to cough but the problem is next time you want to fly somewhere and you see that it's 30 pounds with Ryanair or 300 pounds with British Airways guess who you're flying with because you know money anyone he thinks Ryanair flies to some sort of bastion of sanctity where you can contemplate your naval is wrong we already bombard you with as many in-flight announcements and trolleys as we can anyone who looks like they're sleeping we wake them up to sell them things and on the prickly subject of larger passengers taking up more room on flights he has this to say nobody wants to sip a signed a really fat bastard we have been frankly astonished at the number of customers who don't only want to tax fat people but torture them holy [ __ ] dude I mean no comment alright some people might assume the Michael O'Leary is a thoughtless person he needs to hire a proper PR team but this could just be a case of PR genius here's the thing some customers just want to fly at the cheapest possible prices end of story exactly like I said Danny and I same page as usual and every time O'Leary drummed up a scandal in the media with his bizarre rants the media just ended up reinforcing the message the Ryanair flights were cheap and here we are though he seemed to be quite masterfully playing the media alike a banjo and harnessing the incredible power of negative publicity yes indeed Reiner might have been voted the least liked short-haul airline for six years running in surveys conducted by consumer choice platform which who also revealed that it had come right at the very bottom of a list of the UK's top 100 companies rated on customer service but as long as customers felt safe and ticket prices remains low they were still going to keep on using the appalling service regardless of O'Leary's latest round of verbal abuse in the press or at least that was the story until 2014 oh it changed facing increased competition from rival no frills services such as easyJet Michael O'Leary appears to have turned over a new leaf competition it's a wonderful thing he now believes that it is probably not good business practice to unnecessarily piss people off and he'll be taking a step back from public relations this is company strives become a bit more customer friendly it's been six years are they really I mean I haven't heard Michael Lee return yet it was a call eight me but still Ryanair isn't it he says red Sun may be still very slightly in cheek we're listening to you we're responding to your needs god help me you can't even do this properly is great and since he's gone for it and since then he's gone very quiet indeed it seems almost a shame in a way but let's remember the glory days with these bonus Michael O'Leary quotes I'm Europe's most underpaid and underappreciated boss I'm paid about 20 more times 20 times more than the average run area employee and I think the gap should be wider it is his airline right so he must be taking a ton of stock stuff also yeah I mean this whole thing about where as I owe that CEO it gets paid 20 times what the lowest employee gets is though of course he does is supply the divides like if they were like oh well are we really gonna pay you about you know we're gonna pay you double what we pay our lowest page workers whose off is gonna apply for that job definitely no one he went to in Wharton that's for sure Germans will cruel bollock naked over broken glass to get low fats Oh Michael if drink sales are falling off we get the pilots to engineer a bit of turbulence that usually spikes up the drink sales they definitely don't that's got to be it I mean that would definitely not be legal MBA students come out with my staff is my most important asset [ __ ] staff is usually your biggest cost we only employ some lazy bastards you need to kick up the backside but no one can bring themselves through it miss the best thing you can do with environmentalists we want to annoy the because whenever we can they are Luddites marching us back to the 18th century do we carry rich people on our flights yes I flew on one this morning I'm very free in gold it is absolute gold Michael O'Leary you absolute legends and you dear viewer if you've watched this long as video right to the end you are an absolute legend giving me that watch time I appreciate it I'd also appreciate it if you smash that like button if you enjoyed this video I'd appreciate it less if you smashed the dislike button but as someone pointed out in the comments turn your phone upside down and then smash the dislike button because then it looks like a that then thumbs up looks like the dislike button it's complicated I know we'll be able to master it thank you for watching I'll see you next time blaze it smash that publish button PR
