After a long pause, cruise lines restart their marketing

With their ships on pause during most of 2020, cruise lines were understandably quiet when it came to marketing their sailings to consumers.

That’s been changing.

Norwegian Cruise Line’s Break Free advertising made the biggest marketing splash of last year, when in November its first global campaign since March invited viewers to “look beyond the confines of 2020.” Set to the lyrics of “I Want to Break Free” by Queen, Norwegian said the campaign inspired a wave of bookings.

But other lines have rolled out smaller, and sometimes very unique, campaigns that are mostly online-only and in some cases specifically target past guests. 

Regent Seven Seas Cruises began a social media campaign this month that profiles ship staff and crew by way of short films that highlight their backgrounds and families.

In the clips, the crew serve as narrators. Called The Heart of What We Do, the campaign gives guests a look at the lives of the crew who many cruisers think of as friends after years of returning to the same ships. (For another example of the passenger-crew bond, see the GoFundMe effort by repeat Silversea passengers, which so far has raised nearly $125,000 for out-of-work crew). 

Regent’s first video features John Barron, cruise director on the line’s newest ship, the Seven Seas Splendor, who is based in Newcastle, England. During his video he talks about how he and his wife first worked together on the Seven Seas Navigator and his 21 years at Regent. 

Another features Jorge Caeiro, a maitre’d who will show viewers the olive groves in his Northern Portugal. The short films will run across Regent’s social channels, with a new video every two weeks.

Also this month, Carnival Cruise Line leaned on one of its big names in a small way.  

Carnival’s CFO — or Chief Fun Officer — Shaquille O’Neal introduced a “Mini CFO” sidekick to promote the line’s short-cruise offerings. 

A series of videos and digital media will feature Shaq’s pocket-sized counterpart to highlight Carnival’s three- to five-day cruises from various U.S. homeports. The campaign is running across digital, social and trade sites, including the line’s travel advisor portal, GoCCL.com. 

It is the latest in a series of online-only ad campaigns Carnival has launched in the last year. Another small, Shaq-focused campaign ran around Halloween, called the Pumpkin Ball; the line’s Casino Team ran a partnership with Wheel of Fortune; and a Smile at Half Moon Cay campaign in December put a spotlight on the line’s private Bahamian island. 

Royal Caribbean Group CFO Jason Liberty said this week that it doesn’t expect to broadly ramp up marketing until more ships are back in operation, but it has made some exceptions.

When Celebrity launched Always Included pricing, which includes drinks, WiFi and gratuities in its base cruise fare, it naturally wanted to let people know.