Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

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Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

1050 Caribbean Way
Miami, Florida 33132
USA
Telephone: (305) 539-6000
Fax: (305) 374-7354
Web site: www.royalcaribbean.com

GET OUT THERE CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

In the late 1990s Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. began repositioning its namesake brand, Royal Caribbean International. After campaigns meant to market the brand as an alternative to resort vacations as well as to other cruise companies, in 2000 Royal Caribbean undertook a more ambitious recasting of its image. Amid industry-wide increases in fleet size, Royal Caribbean attempted to attract new customers by appealing to baby boomers and Generation Xers, in addition to the industry standby market of retirees. To accomplish this goal, Royal Caribbean charged the Boston-based agency Arnold Worldwide with the task of changing consumers' stereotypical notions of the cruise ship experience.

The resulting multiyear integrated campaign, called "Get Out There," drew on an estimated $80 million annual budget and included television and print as well as online and promotional components. Television commercials depicted cruise vacations as action-packed avenues for acquiring exotic life experiences, with dramatic, fast-moving imagery synchronized to the high-energy rhythms of the Iggy Pop song "Lust for Life." Print ads supported the message of the cruise as an adventure, and innovations in the Royal Caribbean website played an important role in the brand's desire to appeal to a younger market.

The campaign substantially increased Royal Caribbean's awareness relative to other cruise lines, and the "Get Out There" tagline as well as the song "Lust for Life" became closely associated with the brand. The campaign won a Gold EFFIE Award in 2002 and a Silver EFFIE Award in 2003.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Royal Caribbean Cruise Line came into being in 1968 as a partnership between three Norwegia n shipping companies: Anders Wilhelmsen & Company, I.M. Skauge & Company, and Gotaas Larsen. The line's first vessel, Song of Norway, made its maiden voyage in 1970, and the company added two more ships in the early 1970s. The late 1970s and 1980s saw cruise ships and the industry as a whole grow in size, and in the 1990s Royal Caribbean expanded beyond the tropical destinations referred to in its brand name, offering trips to various parts of Europe, including Scandinavia and Russia. The company went public in 1993 and continued to expand its fleet and its geographic range. In 1997 the brand name was changed from Royal Caribbean Cruise Line to Royal Caribbean International, a reflection of its increasingly global reach and aspirations.

At around this time Royal Caribbean also began repositioning itself to compete not just against other cruise lines but against vacation resorts as well. Television and print advertising, running under the tag-line "Like no vacation on earth," began to focus increasingly on off-ship possibilities for adventure at the various destinations frequented by Royal Caribbean vessels. In the late 1990s the company added new ships almost yearly, steadily increasing its passenger capacity and planning further such increases well beyond the new millennium.

Spurred by a booming U.S. economy, Royal Caribbean's competitors were likewise dramatically increasing their carrying capacity during these years. Still, only about 10 percent of Americans had been on a cruise vacation. Though the expanded occupancy numbers mandated that Royal Caribbean and its competitors correspondingly expand their consumer base, the industry's most consistent customers were older and retired couples, and Americans tended to associate cruise vacations with inactive forms of sightseeing and unexciting onboard activities like shuffle-board and all-you-can-eat buffet dinners. In 1999 Royal Caribbean entrusted its mainstream advertising duties to Arnold Worldwide of Boston and charged the agency with expanding its appeal beyond the traditional cruise market.

TARGET MARKET

Building on the findings of the market research firm Yankelovich Partners, Arnold pinpointed a target market for the "Get Out There" campaign that was united by a mind-set more than age or other demographic divisions. Arnold dubbed this group "Explorers," adults of all ages with a thirst for adventure. As Pam Hamlin, the agency's executive vice president and group account director, told American Demographics, the so-called Explorers "might be 30 or 70, but [they] … don't want to be sightseers or lounge-chair potatoes. Sure, they want a pina colada at the pool at some point, but they also want to go bike riding in Copenhagen or swimming with dolphins."

Though portions of this group fell into the traditional 50-plus age bracket that had long made up the industry's core consumers, the fact remained that adults looking for excitement and adventure on their vacations were naturally clustered in younger portions of the American population. On average, therefore, Arnold and Royal Caribbean were targeting a significantly younger crowd than any cruise line had in the past. Baby boomers, aged 36 to 54 at the time of the launch of "Get Out There," were a particularly important part of the newly envisioned Royal Caribbean target. In Arnold's view baby boomers tended to approach aging with a different attitude than had previous generations of mature adults, placing a high priority on continuing to experience new things and enrich themselves personally through travel and adventure. "They are going to be much younger—in their minds—than the elderly population has ever been," Arnold group creative director Pete Favat told Advertising Age. "This generation is trying to stay as young as possible as long as they can." Members of Generation X, too, were as old as 35 at this time, and Royal Caribbean hoped that its pitch would resonate with them as well.

COMPETITION

The industry's leading company, Carnival Cruise Lines, was, like Royal Caribbean, headquartered in Miami, associated primarily with Caribbean cruises, and, beginning in the late 1990s, actively expanding its fleet. After retiring a long-running ad strategy of using celebrity spokesperson Kathy Lee Gifford in campaigns positioning itself as the company of "fun ships," Carnival tried markedly different approaches in two campaigns, both directed by Cooper HMS Partners (later Cooper and Hayes). A campaign launched in early 2000 took a reality-based approach. Amateur actors were sent on Carnival cruises and then interviewed after the fact. The results of the interviews were culled to create spots focusing on the highlights of the onboard cruise experience, which the interviewees in general claimed they had not expected to enjoy as much as they ultimately did. The campaign targeted a traditional cruise industry audience and hoped to dispel cruise vacation stereotypes by having the actors address such matters in the spots. As agency chief executive and copywriter Ric Cooper told Adweek, "We wanted people with preconceived ideas about this kind of vacation … Fifty percent of this business is repeat customers." A 2002 campaign, by contrast, resurrected the company's positioning as the "fun" cruise line in spots that evoked the romance of cruising and used lively pop music in the hope of enticing first-time cruisers.

The third largest cruise company during this time was Princess Cruise Lines, whose Southern California-based fleet had built its reputation on cruises to Mexico and Alaska and on one of its ship's role as the setting for the popular 1970s and '80s TV drama The Love Boat. A significantly smaller line than either Carnival or Royal Caribbean, Princess had in the late 1990s positioned itself as a cruise brand offering a more personal, customized experience than its better-known competitors. After the turn of the century Princess began pursuing fleet expansions, in keeping with the rest of the industry, and both Carnival and Royal Caribbean competed to purchase the smaller line. In 2002 Carnival prevailed, adding Princess to its increasingly diverse roster of cruise brands.

MARKETING STRATEGY

"Get Out There," which was launched on January 16, 2000, was an integrated TV, print, direct-mail, and promotional campaign, with important tie-ins to the company's website beginning in late 2000. The budget for the complete effort was an estimated $80 million annually, roughly half of which was allotted to the media campaign. Though "Get Out There" was the campaign theme from its inception, the phrase did not become the official tagline until 2002.

The campaign's goals were ambitious: to change consumer perceptions of an entire industry as a means of expanding Royal Caribbean's market. Rather than focus on the onboard experience—associated in the popular consciousness with passive recreational options deemed suitable for the elderly—the new 30- and 60-second TV spots featured fast-moving imagery of, for instance, the Egyptian pyramids, Italy's Amalfi Coast, rock climbers, and vacationers on bicycles in Copenhagen. The quick editing of the commercials was synchronized with the propulsive, up-tempo Iggy Pop song "Lust for Life," which became the brand's theme song over the course of the long-running life of the campaign.

"LUST FOR LIFE"

The energetic beat and affirmative message of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" no doubt seemed to many consumers a good fit for the "Get Out There" campaign, which sought to encourage the perception that cruise vacations were stimulating and adventure oriented, and indeed over the years the song became closely associated with the Royal Caribbean brand. Not surprisingly, only a selected portion of the song was played during the TV spots, so that consumers might not have been aware of any disconnect between the song and its commercial use. As many observers noted, however, Pop was an unlikely spokesperson for a cruise line. Often called the "Godfather of Punk," he was a key influence on the notoriously misanthropic practitioners of 1990s Seattle grunge. "Lust for Life" was itself a song about one of Pop's several recoveries from heroin addiction and was prominently featured, a few years before the debut of the Royal Caribbean campaign, on the sound track to the movie Trainspotting, a dark comedy about Scottish heroin addicts.

The print portion of the campaign, which ran in national magazines and in newspapers in selected markets, kicked off in February 2000. Dramatic natural and architectural scenery was used in concert with questions and statements meant to stimulate the desire for travel and adventure. The copy for one ad read, "Yeah, you've seen ice sculptures made by a chef. Ever seen the ones made by God?" Another ad informed consumers, "Among the things you'll learn biking in Sardinia: In Italian, even 'my cuff is caught in the chain' sounds romantic."

In May 2000 Royal Caribbean unveiled a redesigned website (www.royalcaribbean.com), which for the first time allowed consumers to make cruise reservations online. This was a significant step toward the brand's goal of attracting younger consumers, who tended to be more Internet-savvy than their elders, and another addition to the website prior to the 2001 installment of "Get Out There"—the creation of an online "virtual" cruise experience—further positioned Royal Caribbean to grow its market among the increasing number of Americans who made travel reservations online. The "Get Out There" TV spots in 2001 were little different from their predecessors the year before, except that they directed viewers to royalcaribbean.com, where Web users could experience the activities shown in the commercials as though test-driving the vacation. For instance, users could see the streets of Copenhagen from the vantage point of the cyclists who appeared in one popular TV spot, or they could duplicate the experience of swimming underwater with stingrays.

In late 2001 the "Get Out There" concept was adapted to an Alaska-specific pitch. One noteworthy TV spot in this portion of the campaign opened on what appeared to be a dramatic mountain-climbing scene. Two men struggled as though barely able to continue an attempt at the summit, but a female voice then interjected, "If you guys don't quit it, I'm going to miss my massage." The opening chords of "Lust for Life" began playing, followed by quickly intercut images of action-oriented adventure, the trademark of the campaign, before a voice-over proclaimed, "Somewhere between the glacier hiking, the dogsledding, the train tours, and the rock wall, it hits you: this is way more than a cruise. See for yourself at royalcaribbean.com, and get out there."

A 2002 print portion of the campaign likewise adapted the larger advertising strategy to pitch a specific branch of Royal Caribbean's offerings, using images of the Sistine Chapel and the Louvre, among other marquee European destinations. Copy promoted the complementary benefits of tourist activities and cruise ship luxury. Otherwise, in subsequent years the campaign retained its signature visual look and sound track on TV spots.

OUTCOME

The first several years of the "Get Out There" campaign were marred by the steep declines in tourism related to depressed economic conditions and a widespread fear of traveling following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. Nevertheless, Royal Caribbean managed to significantly affect consumers' perceptions of cruise vacations and build a brand image that was directly associated with the new, more dynamic idea of such travel. As of 2005, Royal Caribbean's unaided brand awareness had climbed 33 percent above its 2000 level, and it had become the cruise line most often recommended by travel agents. Royal Caribbean's online bookings increased dramatically in the years following the debut of the website, and the company's stock price had increased more than 100 percent by 2005. The campaign's effectiveness was honored twice with EFFIE awards. The overall campaign won a Gold EFFIE in 2002, and the Alaska portion of the campaign won a Silver EFFIE in 2003.