In 1994, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou was 27 years old and on a business trip to the United States. During that trip he flew on a low-cost airline and stayed in a budget hotel for the first time. That experience gave him a simple idea. Why not use the same brand for both businesses?
Later that year, Stelios chose “easy” as the over-arching brand for this brand extension strategy. Until then, he had been using a shortened version of his own name, “Stel”. Had things turned out differently, easyJet might have been called Stelair.
Thirty two years later, easyJet.com remains the best-known easy brand, having carried over 1.2 billion passengers since launch. The easy family has since grown to include well over 100 sub-brands across many consumer-facing sectors and geographies. More information can be found at www.easy.com.
To mark the 30-year anniversary, Stelios has released a three-minute video telling the story of how the easy brand began, how it grew, and what it stands for today. The final part of the video focuses on the work of the Stelios Foundation, the UK registered charity funded by Stelios and easyGroup Ltd.
Since 2010, Sir Stelios and easyGroup have donated over €122 million to the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, supporting communities where the founder and his family live and work, including the UK, Ireland, Monaco, France, Greece, and Cyprus.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou says:
“I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to create this recurring income stream from the easy family of brands which I use every year to give back to society. Here is to the next 30 years of the easy family and to a lot more good work done by my foundation.”
Watch the updated video now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHyUyXnzg9Q