In case you, or anybody near you, spent even a couple of minutes on TikTok this summer season, chances are high you encountered the viral Jet2holidays meme.
The finances journey model unexpectedly grew to become the point of interest of one of many platform’s largest traits, as customers paired clips of chaotic British vacation moments – airport fights, water-sports mishaps, drunken night-outs – with Jess Glynne’s ‘Maintain My Hand’, the soundtrack utilized in Jet2holidays’ promoting.
In case you, or anybody near you, spent even a couple of minutes on TikTok this summer season, chances are high you encountered the viral Jet2holidays meme.
The finances journey model unexpectedly grew to become the point of interest of one of many platform’s largest traits, as customers paired clips of chaotic British vacation moments – airport fights, water-sports mishaps, drunken night-outs – with Jess Glynne’s ‘Maintain My Hand’, the soundtrack utilized in Jet2holidays’ promoting.
The tagline ‘Nothing beats a Jet2holiday’ grew to become an ironic punchline for movies displaying the precise reverse.
Talking to media on Jet2’s half-year outcomes in the present day (19 November), CEO Stephen Heapy mentioned the corporate’s unintentional virality was “vastly helpful” for the model, delivering an uplift in consciousness and engagement, notably amongst youthful audiences.
“We’ve mentioned previously that that is one among our targets – make the model higher recognized amongst the youthful demographic and this has actually helped,” he mentioned.
The meme reached over 80 billion international views throughout 11.8 million social media posts, with Maintain my Hand named the worldwide ‘Music of the Summer season 2025’ by TikTok.
That cultural second might have additionally helped contribute to the model’s business efficiency.
Jet2 carried 14.09 million passengers within the 26 weeks to 30 September, a rise of 750,000 passengers year-on-year. Membership of its myJet2 loyalty programme rose 62% to greater than 8.4 million subscribers. Group income grew 5% to £5.34bn, whereas working revenue elevated 2% to £715.2m.
A few of that momentum might stem from how the model dealt with the development. Social media audiences will be fast to criticise companies for “ruining” a meme in the event that they take it too severely, the other of what Jet2 did.
“When the meme began, we began chatting with some advisors and their recommendation was to not intervene, as a result of as quickly as an enormous company model begins to intervene in a meme like that, it’s seen as changing into uncool after which it stops,” Heapy defined.
@rsayheya You’ve gotta love an English Summer season #tenting #england #cornwall #nothingbeatsajet2holiday
♬ Jet2 Advert – ✈️A7-BBH | MAN ??
Utilizing unique information offered by YouGov from model monitoring instrument BrandIndex, now we have taken a better take a look at whether or not Jet2’s unplanned virality had a optimistic affect on its model.
The TikTok development has actually had a optimistic affect on how conscious persons are of the enterprise.
Because the starting of the yr, general consciousness amongst 18-to-49-year-olds rose sharply, climbing from 79% in January to a peak of 93% in August. Advert consciousness noticed a good steeper trajectory, growing from 19.9% at first of the yr to 55.7% at its August peak.
Consideration – YouGov’s measure of whether or not customers have heard something a few model, optimistic or adverse – rose from 12.1% of the UK inhabitants in January to 36.5% by mid-September.
Consideration additionally improved, rising from 27.9% to a excessive of 35.7% in October, earlier than easing barely. Buy intent adopted an analogous sample, rising from 9% in January to 16.6% at its peak, proving that virality – even with adverse connotations – can have a optimistic affect on whether or not folks select to purchase.
Nonetheless, not all metrics moved positively. Regardless of Heapy’s assertion that “adverse sentiment was massively drowned out by the optimistic sentiment”, perceptions of high quality declined all year long.
When requested whether or not Jet2holidays represents ‘good’ or ‘poor’ high quality relative to opponents, customers rated the model at a internet 17.7% optimistic in January. By early October, that rating had fallen to a internet 7.2% – its lowest level of the yr.
The decline was steeper amongst youthful adults. For 18-to-34-year-olds, high quality perceptions fell to a internet 0.3% in October. Since then, the rating has begun to recuperate, though it stays under its beginning stage.
Status scores, based mostly on whether or not respondents could be proud to work for the model, additionally dropped. Jet2holidays entered the yr with a internet fame rating of 14.6%, which fell to 4.1% in October.
One space of power was worth, which Heapy reiterates is vital for the model. Jet2holidays has targeted on being versatile with bundle holidays or flight-only bookings in response to the late reserving development – making a reservation shortly earlier than the supposed date of departure.
“We’ve mentioned previously that we’ve acquired a model that pulls folks. We’ve acquired a model that individuals belief. And I feel in financial occasions like we’re in in the intervening time, folks are inclined to gravitate to manufacturers they belief,” he mentioned.
“They could not go for the bottom value available in the market. They wish to be sure that they get worth for cash and I feel that’s what now we have offered.”
The share of respondents who mentioned Jet2holidays represents good worth for cash elevated from 22% in January to 29% in August. Worth perceptions have since tapered, however stay above early yr ranges.
Regardless of the dips in high quality and fame, Heapy insisted the model “is just not nervous in any respect”, arguing the overwhelmingly light-hearted nature of the meme overshadowed any adverse connotations.
“Nearly all of posts had been completely happy, cheerful, humorous posts that I feel solely served to extend the notion of the model, and that massively outweighed and drowned out any noise from the much less common ones,” he mentioned.
Amongst opponents, Jet2’s virality might have helped push consideration above rivals Easyjet and TUI.
For Jet2, the information presents a nuanced image. The model achieved monumental attain and a focus, translating into larger consideration, buy intent and, finally, stronger gross sales.
However the TikTok second can also have contributed to a softening of perceptions round high quality and fame, metrics that may affect long-term model fairness.
Jet2’s subsequent precedence is to make use of the momentum to encourage earlier bookings. Heapy mentioned the enterprise will proceed to lean into its latest advertising and marketing expertise investments to ship extra personalised and well timed communications.
“This expertise will give us extra capacity to achieve the proper clients on the proper time with the proper product, the proper content material, the proper photos, the proper value, through the proper channel,” he mentioned.
“So advertising and marketing will grow to be rather more related and rather more well timed to clients, and hopefully incentivise them to e book earlier.”
The problem now’s whether or not Jet2 can keep its features with extra conventional advertising and marketing exercise or whether or not the model will want one other viral second to repeat the success of its unplanned fame.
