NCL to consult trade on TV advertising ahead of ex-UK return

NCL to consult trade on TV advertising ahead of ex-UK return

Norwegian Cruise Line plans to consult with the trade before making a decision on whether it introduces TV advertising in the UK.

Speaking as the line revealed plans to have a ship sailing from the UK for the first time in seven years, Harry Sommer, executive vice president of international business development, said the line would discuss marketing with key agent partners before making a decision.

“I’ve been asked to speak to our trade partners about doing TV ads in the UK, Germany and Spain – our three top European markets.

"I can’t rule it in or out but because so much of our marketing in Europe is with our travel agency partners it is a decision we’d like to make jointly with them.”

The line will base Norwegian Jade in Southampton in 2017 and will offer a series of 11 Western Europe and three Norwegian Fjords sailings between May 12 and June 20 and August 7 and October 16, 2017.

Sommer said the decision to return to Southampton was partly due to “market demand”, but also that it was “reflective of the growth of the company”.

The ship will arrive in Europe after a two-and-a-half week dry-dock. Ports of call featured on its itineraries include Hamburg, Amsterdam, Zeebrugge, Le Havre, Alesund, Geiranger, and Bergen.

Asked why the line wasn’t offering Mediterranean sailings out of Southampton, Sommer said they’d found it difficult to put together a “good itinerary” and instead believed the fly-cruise market was better suited to that part of Europe.

Senior vice president international sales and operations, Francis Riley, said basing Norwegian Jade in Southampton, and Hamburg, where the ship will also offer sailings from, would be a way of “testing it” for the future.

“When we started looking at deployments we said as a team we were ready to have a ship back (in the UK), and we’ve been ready for some time,” he said.

The line’s 2017 programme includes a total of five ships sailing in Europe, NCL's biggest-ever European deployment.

Norwegian Getaway, which launched in 2014, will return to Europe to sail eight or nine-night Baltic Capitals cruises to and from Copenhagen.

Norwegian Epic will sail in the Western Mediterranean; Norwegian Spirit will offer 10 and 11-night voyages between Barcelona and Venice and Norwegian Star will sail between Venice and the Greek Isles.

Norwegian’s managing director for EMEA, Christian Boell, said: “Not only are we offering the possibility to embark in Southampton but we are also bringing one of our newest and most innovative ships back to Europe.

“We’re convinced that this will encourage continued growth in the UK market, where we have just seen record breaking guest numbers in 2015.”

Northern Europe general manager, Nick Wilkinson, added: “I’m sure these exciting Southampton sailings will be music to our travel partners’ ears.”

“We are back, we’re in Southampton and we are in it to win,” Wilkinson added.

Avalon emphasizes great views in river cruise TV ads

Avalon Cruise

Viking River Cruises is no longer the only river cruise line with a TV advertising presence. Avalon Waterways launched its first television ad campaign in September, with its first video spots airing on HGTV, the Travel Channel, CNN and BBC America.

Viking ads have introduced many Americans to European river cruising over the past four years. Now that consumers know more about it, Avalon “felt that now is the time to introduce the idea of an option,” said Steve Born, senior vice president of marketing for Globus, Avalon’s parent company.

Avalon created three playful spots that highlight the importance of having a good view, leading into Avalon’s stateroom design —  beds face outward to open-air balconies, providing passengers with views of the passing scenery while they cruise.

A six-week ad run will be completed at the end of October. The company is hoping that the advertising will raise awareness about what Avalon offers and help agents sell the product when customers who have watched the commercials ask about Avalon.

“We wanted to give the agent a little bit of an assist by having the seed planted first before the inquiry begins,” said Born.

Avalon doesn’t have any further ad buys scheduled. Born said the company is waiting to see the return on investment. 

Avalon also did a three-minute promotional video that showcases views from a river cruise.

New Royal Caribbean ads focus on ‘next gen’ cruisers

Royal Caribbean says its “Come Seek” campaign reflects the brand’s adventurous spirit.

Royal Caribbean International is launching a major marketing campaign on Oct. 19 that will focus on Caribbean destinations and subvert stereotypes about a cruise.

Stylistically, it is designed to break through advertising clutter and indifference, with a specific emphasis on reaching “next gen” cruisers with twitchy images and jangly music.

The Royal’s first since chief marketing officer Jim Berra moved to Royal from a similar position at Carnival Cruise Line, will be nothing if not different, Berra said.

“It really is about attracting that next generation of cruisers,” Berra said. “We’re not simply trying to speak to our current core passengers.”

The key message in ads that will begin airing on shows such as NBC’s “The Voice” is about what a cruise is “not.”

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Viewers will see a rapid sequence of images that include statements such as “This is not a cruise,” or “You are not a tourist,” or “This is not the Caribbean.”

Berra said the theme was designed to resonate with about 35 million people who are not “cruise rejecters” but who need more convincing.

“Some of the things we’re going to do when showing our shipboard experience is to bring it to light in ways that are a little bit unexpected,” he said.

The “not” theme will carry over into a trade campaign that will include the theme “You are not a travel agent.”  Instead, Royal suggests in one ad that, “You are an all-knowing giggle-moment maker.”

Vicki Freed, Royal’s senior vice president of sales trade support and service, said field sales calls are being rebranded as “seeker sessions.”

“We’re going to help give [agents] the tools and the resources to help get those people who are “seekers” to think about coming on a Royal Caribbean cruise,” Freed said.

“Come Seek” will have several novel delivery vehicles, including 5-second video adsthat will serve as “teasers” on national television and as “snackable” messages for social media posting.

Video for the campaign has been shot and edited so it stands out on small screens, Berra said.

Starting in November, Royal will also come alive on 320 electronic billboards in high traffic spots in New York City that will carry live Periscope video from ships or Caribbean locales.

The idea leverages Royal’s Voom broadband connection to stream the video.

As part of the effort, Royal will select crew members to show off their insider knowledge in social media postings.

Berra said Royal ‘s fourth-quarter ad spending will be up 35% from last year, with an expected increase in next year’s first quarter, too.

MSC Cruises unveils TV ad

Photo by Dave Jones

MSC Cruises has launched its first long-term TV branding campaign in the U.S. with an ad titled “In the Summertime.” The commercial will appear on a variety of cable channels.

The commercial’s music, “In the Summertime,” is a 1970 pop hit rerecorded with MSC’s own lyrics by the original artist, Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry. “In the Summertime,” which features a washboard introduction, topped the pop charts in 26 countries in the summer of 1970. 

“As we plan for MSC Divina to sail year-round from Miami starting in November 2015 and then our next-generation, newbuild, MSC Seaside, to come to Miami in 2017, you’ll see a significant increase in MSC’s marketing efforts,” said Bonnie Levengood, MSC Cruises USA's senior vice president of marketing.

In June, the company will launch MSC Book, a new booking engine for travel agents that it says will improve the end-user experience and make the booking process as quick and simple as possible. 

At the same time, MSC will reveal a revamped travel agent site with a new look and feel, and later this summer it will launch a new consumer website.

Carnival Corporation reports strong Q1 profits

By Hollie-Rae Merrick 

Carnival Corporation has reporter stronger-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of 2015.

The cruise company made a net profit of $49 million, or $0.06 diluted earnings per share in the last quarter, compared to a net loss of $20 million in the last year period.

It attributed its strong earnings to a rise in onboard revenues which were up 8% compared to 2014. Onboard spending rose to $889 million from $850 million, although revenue from ticket prices dropped around 3.5%.

Net revenue yields increased 2% in the first quarter of 2015, better than the company’s December guidance of up to 1%. However, gross revenue yields dropped 3.1% due to changes in currency exchange rates.

Looking ahead to 2015, Carnival Corporation said advance bookings were ahead of 2014 and at higher prices.

Chief executive and president Arnold Donald said: “The year is off to a strong start achieving significantly higher earnings than the prior year and our previous guidance.

“Our onboard revenue initiatives drove particularly strong improvement in the first quarter with onboard yields more than 8% higher than prior year (constant dollar).

“We are experiencing an ongoing improvement in underlying fundamentals based on our successful initiatives to drive demand. Our efforts to further elevate our guest experience are clearly resonating with consumers and, notably, improving the frequency and retention of our loyal guests.”

Donald said he believed results had improved off the back of “ongoing public relations efforts and creative marketing campaigns” designed to attract new customers. He referenced the success of the company’s Super Bowl advertising campaign which generated five billion impressions online before the ad had even run on TV.

He added: “Consistent with many global companies, the strengthening of the US dollar has hampered our full-year earnings expectations, masking the 3% to 4% (constant currency) yield increase our collective brands are expecting to achieve.

“Our successful initiatives to drive both ticket and onboard revenue yields have improved our financial performance and we remain on track toward our goal of achieving double-digit return on invested capital in the next three to four years.”

Following a strong start to the year with bookings, Carnival said it expects full-year 2015 net revenue yields to increase 3% or 4% compared to 2014 and one point better than previous guidance for the year ahead.

However, changes in currency exchange rates means full-year 2015 earning expectations have been reduced by $219 million. Carnival said this was offset by an improvement in the company’s operating performance.

Cruise lines back on the tube with new advertising efforts

By Tom Stieghorst

Cruise lines are returning to TV advertising for the first time since the Great Recession in 2008, giving agents hope that pent-up demand will be stimulated by the media blitz.

Within the past six months, Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises and Celebrity Cruises have in total pledged more than $60 million to new marketing campaigns that rely mainly on TV.

The latest is Celebrity, which last week launched its $16 million “Remember Everything” campaign on the Bravo channel.
  

A void created by the near absence of the cruise brands on the airwaves has left the industry’s image to news programs and let it slip from consumer consciousness, said Bob Dickinson, a marketing expert and former president of Carnival Cruise Lines.

“The first stake in the ground is: any advertising is better than none,” said Dickinson, who remains a consultant to Carnival Corp.’s four North American brands.

Cruise lines have shied away from the biggest mass-market ad channel for a number of reasons. After the 2008 economic meltdown, many consumers were hard-pressed by job losses and mortgage woes, making a big spend on TV unproductive.

Some cruise lines, Carnival Cruise Lines in particular, developed an alternate media strategy that leaned more toward online and social media as those channels attracted younger and growing audiences.

Finally, the climate for brand advertising was soured by the 2012 Costa Concordia sinking and the 2013 Carnival Triumph fire, which called for a more subdued and policy-oriented marketing response.

The result, according to Dickinson, is that cruises have not been a top-of-mind vacation choice.

“We were not stimulating the demand in a positive sense, and yet CNN and the news [coverage] was very negative,” he said.

Even in an ideal climate, the expense of TV makes it a big risk for all but the largest lines. Magazines, billboards, radio and online are all more affordable, although none connect with a mass audience as well as television, media experts say.

In 2012, Carnival Cruise Lines spent $2.6 million on outdoor advertising, $1.5 million on newspapers, $732,000 on radio and $321,000 on magazines, according to Kantar Media, a media monitoring company in New York.

Only its Internet spend of $10.7 million came close to the $10.8 million it spent on television. But in 2013 the company decided that after the worst of the reaction to the Triumph fire had passed, it needed to come back in a big way to rebuild brand connection.

So it created “Moments That Matter,” a $25 million campaign that featured emotional stories about standout memories provided by past guests and narrated from their point of view.

The ads were somewhat of a departure from the high-energy, Fun Ship themes of the past, a change that Carnival executives said was appropriate to the mood following the Triumph uproar.

Emotional response

For varied reasons, all of the new campaigns, including “Remember Everything” and Princess Cruises’ $20 million “Come Back New” theme, are designed to evoke emotion and include the passenger point of view.

“It seems to be the new trend,“ said Bill Pedlar, a former vice president of marketing at Holland America Line who now runs Knightly Tours, which packages vacations in Alaska and the Canadian Rockies. “It is much more dealing with how you feel, what’s your experience.”

Pedlar said he liked a Carnival ad in which a daughter learns that “work mom” and “vacation mom” are different. “To my mind, that was a good target because it talked to the multigenerational thing,” he said.

Carnival’s ads appeared on national network TV, as do many of those from Royal Caribbean International, which never really stopped advertising during the recession and whose $45 million annual TV budget is the largest by far in the cruise industry.

Smaller lines tend to take a more selective approach. Norwegian Cruise Line ran TV ads in New York and Miami to promote its Norwegian Breakaway and Getaway ships. MSC Cruises advertised on cable channels for the first time in November when it brought its MSC Divina to Miami year-round.

This year, Holland America Line has targeted six cities for an eight-week run of TV spots, said Mark Kammerer, senior vice president of marketing and sales.

While Pedlar said the new, more emotional ads from Celebrity and Princess could draw noncruisers from upscale resorts, Dickinson said it is important to keep hammering home the basics of a cruise and cast as wide a net as possible to get more cruisers.

“I‘m not sure beyond ‘fun’ we want to get too emotional until we know what [a cruise] is,” he said.
 

Guest Post: January's good, bad and ugly on social media

By Travolution

By Dean Harvey, Digital Development Director at Designate.

We’re well into the New Year now and a fresh release of TV advertising from the travel industry is all over our screens, enticing us to think about sunnier days ahead and forget the gloomy weather outside.

The dynamics between established media and social media are largely unknown as it is relatively new and not yet mature (when compared to traditional media such as press, TV or radio).

Double screening* techniques are being explored by brands – such as using Twitter hashtags as part of their TV advertising.

The theory being that while watching TV you also are multi-tasking and using your smartphone or tablet. In doing so you can start or continue a conversation directly with your audience – while being prompted by your TV adverts.

A quick look at those social media ‘conversations’ can be insightful about the impact of and reaction to a campaign.

Starting with the Ugly, it’s too tempting not to include the latest opus from Thomson in this section.

It is called ‘Simon The Ogre’ after all, who by his nature is ugly. The campaign is the brainchild of Gavin McGrath, creative director at the Thomson’s agency BMB and directed by Fredrik Bond.

Described as more of a mini movie than a TV advert it depicts an ogre, representing a de-humanised Dad of a family, who gradually becomes more human again as a result of being on a Thomson holiday.

Simon is ugly, but so too is some feedback online where it seems to have divided and polarised opinion.

Here’s just some of the conversation if you are following the Thomson hashtag #MeAgain.

And at the other end of the spectrum there is lots of positive sentiment too, making this release seem as if it’s achieved a ‘Marmite’ effect where people "love it or hate it".

So for this edition of Good, Bad and Ugly it also gets my vote for being ‘Good’ too. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Also, experimenting with new dynamics but sitting in the ‘Bad’ pile is British Airways.

Using double screening, their new TV ad is featured on their YouTube channel with additional functionality - at the right time in the advert the user is invited to click into the video taking them instantly through to the right part of the website, such as the ‘holiday finder’ or the inspired ‘picture your holiday’.

Nice. Using Jake Bugg as a soundtrack can’t have been cheap – but that seems to have been the only thing that has inspired its viewers.

There’s a missed opportunity here to use a Twitter hashtag on the TV advert to guide viewers towards the additional functionality of their website.

To redeem themselves, however, BA chose instead to use an outdoor advertising campaign that directed people to Twitter.

The #lookup campaign is a storming success, using interactive poster sites with children pointing every time one of their planes flies overhead.

Take a look for yourselves and join the million-plus people that have done so.

This is a great example of exploiting the dynamics between old and new media, coming together to work hard for the brand. Very clever, very good.

*Double Screening - The art of watching TV while simultaneously surfing on a laptop, smartphone or tablet.