Royal Caribbean Launches New Global Ad Campaign

Royal Caribbean Launches New Global Ad Campaign
By Theresa Norton Masek

Royal Caribbean International is launching a playful new global brand and advertising campaign with the tagline “The Sea is Calling. Answer It Royally” under the line’s iconic crown-and-anchor logo. The campaign replaces the “Nation of Why Not” campaign.

The campaign will feature TV ads, some of which are now visible on Royal Caribbean’s website and social media outlets, that feature people bundled up in cold climes picking up a ringing “shellphone” that is a conch shell. The sea recommends they come for a visit on a Royal Caribbean ship.

The TV ads will debut Jan. 9, but they are visible now. A travel agent site with postcards, posters, cards promoting the value of travel agent and even a talking conch shell was scheduled to go live on Dec. 12.

A teaser campaign primarily aimed at prospects, but not showing the Royal Caribbean logo or name, will launch Dec. 19 with outdoor posters and online banners in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. The posters feature clever teasers such as “You Don’t Recharge It. It Recharges You.” Or, “MP3? No. SPF? Yes.”

In a conference call with cruise journalists, Betsy O’Rourke, senior vice president of marketing, said the line was continuing efforts to dispel the “newlywed, overfed and nearly dead” perception held by some non-cruisers. The line conducted research and focus groups in 16 countries, and found people have an “incredible connection to the sea” that “cannot be duplicated on land.”

Royal Caribbean wanted a campaign that would work globally and across radio, print, TV and online ads but that also promoted the company as clever, challenging, witty, aspirational, confident, playful and culturally relevant to global the marketplace.

O’Rourke said the ads attempt to “reframe the context of cruising. “People think they know what cruising is, but they don’t, and they tune out when we do traditional advertising,” she said. “We need to tap into something they’re very familiar with, to open the possibilities.”