Advertiser: CELEBRITY CRUISES
Agency: EMANATE
Category: Entertainment & Leisure
Advertising campaign: FOODIE CRUISE ON DRY LAND
Senior Associate: Dayna Adelman (Emanate)
Director Of PR: Elizabeth Jakeway (Celebrity Cruises)
Vice President: Jaret Posmentier (Emanate)
Senior Associate: Lisa Harrison (Emanate)
PR Manager: Tavia Robb (Celebrity Cruises)
Director: Marybeth Clayton (Emanate)
Director/Culinary Operations: John Suley (Celebrity Cruises)
Associate: Ross Nacht (Emanate)
PR Coordinator: Stephanie Holder (Celebrity Cruises)
Implementation
In just 48 hours, we created full-scale Celebrity Cruises restaurants in the heart of America’s coastal food capitals where viable competition for the finest restaurants would not only create waves, but wash away misconceptions about cruise food. The venues: The Stable Café in San Francisco and The Kitchen NYC. We asked Tasting Table to spread the word to the local San Francisco and NYC editions and take reservations for a five-star-worthy extravaganza in spaces that emanated “cool.” Diners sat in open kitchens where chefs cooked “dinner-in-the-round” – three-course meals like those at sea. After a few days, we sailed away leaving in our wake a taste for cruising.
Client Brief Or Objective
Landlubbers view cruise ships as the floating province of octogenarians and fans of subpar buffets. Celebrity Cruises approached us hoping to change this perception and appeal to vacationers whose passion for epicurean delights leaves them unsatisfied with anything shy of five-star quality meals. Because 97% of the U.S. public does not cruise in any given year, we knew our campaign would have to be convincing enough to lure non-cruisers to sea by appealing to the power of their palates. In order to coax city slickers to leave town, we’d have to break new ground – by cruising for foodies on dry land.
Outcome
We achieved “five-star” results, securing coverage in all the right big-name food and travel media, including The New York Times (twice!), generating 14 million targeted impressions. We generated 3,100 leads through sweepstakes and reservation systems and reached 190,000 Tasting Table subscribers with targeted emails and newsletters, resulting in 1.93 million impressions and 6,000 clicks delivered. Positive perceptions of cruise food shifted 109%, according to exit survey data. Consideration for booking a cruise vacation rose 95%, as 75% of diners said they were “likely” or “very likely” to book a Celebrity Cruises vacation. The verdict? Celebrity Cruises was a foodie mecca on water.
Relevancy
Cruisers – only 3% of U.S. consumers each year – are a particular breed. They love laid-back travel and a full menu of onboard amenities. But we needed a strategy to reach a bigger population segment, so we zeroed in on our #1 brand strength: our food. We believed our brand could appeal to food-involved landlubbers who continued to dismiss cruises as “Love Boat” era motels at sea with limited buffets -- if we could only treat them to our extensive, exquisite onboard cuisine on shore. So in less than 48 hours, we created pop-up ship-to-shore venues never before attempted to put Celebrity’s culinary brand strength on display in New York and San Francisco.