Cruise News
Other cruise lines: We wouldn't do what Royal Caribbean did
Major cruise lines that compete with Royal Caribbean say they don't operate viral marketing campaigns of the type Royal Caribbean allegedly ran with its Royal Champions program, and never will.
"Our Internet marketing team has always been almost puritanical about transparency and authenticity when it comes to social media," says Tim Gallagher, a spokesman for industry giant Carnival. "People go to the boards looking for candid input from travelers about their experiences. We don't need to try to influence those people with freebies."
Gallagher says Carnival's philosophy is to let its product speak for itself. "If you've seen comments on the cruise boards, (Carnival cruise director John Heald's) blog or our own Carnival Connections you know that we have quite a loyal following among the 'spirited' who constantly sing our praises," he says.
Royal Caribbean has come under fire in recent days from cruise enthusiasts, online message board operators and other industry watchers over the Royal Champions program, which allegedly rewarded a small group of fans who posted positive comments about the line at online message boards with free cruises and other perks.
A Royal Caribbean executive who spoke recently at a marketing conference said the aim of the program was to "subtly influence the influencers without them overtly realizing they were being influenced."
Spokespeople for all of Royal Caribbean's major competitors including Holland America, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess and Celebrity tell USA TODAY they have nothing similar to the Royal Champions program and would not engage in viral marketing at online message boards.
"We do monitor the boards to see what's being talked about," says Holland America spokesman Erik Elvejord. But there's "no rewards, no pretending."
Elvejord says that occassionally a Holland America spokesperson such as himself will enter a conversation on a message board but only after fully disclosing his or her affiliation. "It's done to correct facts in the threads that may be incorrect," he says. "But it's always done by saying, 'This is Erik, PR Director, Holland America Line. I wanted to correct some facts in this thread.' Something like that."
Princess spokeswoman Julie Benson says the line wouldn't do viral marketing at online message boards. "Any of our future efforts to engage in conversations with the cruise enthusiast community will only be done transparently," she says.
Indeed, transparency is the key when dealing with the online community, say cruise line representatives.
"We aren’t doing anything like that," says Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Courtney Recht, referring to Royal Caribbean's program. "Everything we do is very transparent."
Even Royal Caribbean's sister company, Celebrity Cruises, is staying away from the idea.
"We don't have a viral marketing campaign like that of Royal, and we also do not have a viral marketing campaign on online message boards," says Celebrity spokesperson Elizabeth Jakeway. "We proactively solicit feedback from our guests via questionnaires both during and after their cruises -- and other surveys among our Captain's Club loyalty program members, of course, but purely for feedback/measurement/shaping our product and experience, not for viral marketing purposes."
Comments
Are we forgetting Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel ? Every cruises she took so far - regardless of Royal Caribbean,
Carnival, Disney etc etc were rated 11 of a possible 10 - nothing ever went wrong when she was on board a cruise ship. So far, we haven't heard one single negative comment from her. Just like the slogan from Thai International Airlines , "Smooth As Silk".
It is not in the least surprising that Cruise Critic is owned by TripAdvisor and that the blog is being populated by "paid for" positive comments. As someone has already posted, why on earth would you believe a comment from a complete stranger? Add to this the fact that TripAdvisor is totally anonymous, unchecked and (apparently) poorly supervised - if at all on occasions - then the whole caboodle is a recipe for disaster. You do not even have to have been to a particular place in order to post a blog about it! How stupid and irresponsible is that? Got a grudge - let 'em have it on TripAdvisor! Bad mouth your nearest competitor - TripAdvisor, just the job! Talk up your own mediocre business - TripAdvisor again! No questions asked! High ethical standards? I don't think so. It is becoming clearer by the day now that TripAdvisor is becoming increasingly unreliable as a source of travel advice and that intelligent users are becoming more and more sceptical about its value to them. At the end of the day the number of "hits" is, of course, impressive and the site is massively consulted. But "Get the truth. Then go". I don't think so! Not any more.
I believe that virtually every business that has a large internet presence toots it own horn under the guise of being some one else while hidden in the masses of the net.
Its amazing how some people will believe something they see on the net without any verification. What is it that makes people believe someone they don't know, have never met and they know nothing about?
WOW, someone from somewhere said something good about this product that I know nothing about. It must be really good!!!
We all need to be a little more cautious about believing what we read, especially with the net's ability to hide.
We have all heard about the internet dating company that used employees to pretend to be potential dates, the perverts that pretend to be children and the cops who pretend to be victims(and thats not bad).
Everyone has an axe to grind or a product to plug. That does not make it true. So, a cruse line trying to influince people to use them, its just another form of advertising. Shady, yes. Now that they have been caught they should be penalized and anyone who bought services based on that shamless deceit should learn a lesson.
Don't trust anyone you don't know or can not verify indipentantly.
From Jaunted (Conde Nast):
Royal Caribbean Cruises Has Web 2.0 Viral Infection
No surprise here: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has a viral infection. For once, however, it's not the Norovirus but that new-fangled byproduct of Web 2.0, the viral marketing infiltration. According to Consumerist, a group of fifty "Royal Champions" was outed by their own creator, the Customer Insight Group, as being a successful project whereby frequent positive cruise commenting on sites such as CruiseCritic was rewarded with free cruises and other perks.
So what's the big deal? Well, it seems that the "Royal Champions" weren't always up front about their status as compensated reviewers, effectively misleading readers of CruiseCritic forums with their positive comments. Add to this the fact that CruiseCritic admins assisted Royal Caribbean in choosing the fifty, with one of the stipulations being quantity of posts, "with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics." From here, the hole just gets deeper.
Now that many RC fans feel slighted at not having made the ranks and most everyone else is disgusted at the covert trade of cruising for happy juicing, the trustworthiness of such forums is under fire.
Due to CruiseCritic's ownership by TripAdvisor, which is in turn under the Expedia blanket of travel sites, a viral marketing stunt gone awry could possibly continue to negatively ripple. Does news like this affect your ability to trust good reviews on travel sites, or do you already consider yourself an excellent shill-spotter enough to weed out the solicited from the unsolicited? While this whole ordeal is mired in serious muckety-muck, let's hope it serves as a lesson for future viral marketers and as an argument for transparency.
From Jaunted (Conde Nast):
Royal Caribbean Cruises Has Web 2.0 Viral Infection
No surprise here: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has a viral infection. For once, however, it's not the Norovirus but that new-fangled byproduct of Web 2.0, the viral marketing infiltration. According to Consumerist, a group of fifty "Royal Champions" was outed by their own creator, the Customer Insight Group, as being a successful project whereby frequent positive cruise commenting on sites such as CruiseCritic was rewarded with free cruises and other perks.
So what's the big deal? Well, it seems that the "Royal Champions" weren't always up front about their status as compensated reviewers, effectively misleading readers of CruiseCritic forums with their positive comments. Add to this the fact that CruiseCritic admins assisted Royal Caribbean in choosing the fifty, with one of the stipulations being quantity of posts, "with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics." From here, the hole just gets deeper.
Now that many RC fans feel slighted at not having made the ranks and most everyone else is disgusted at the covert trade of cruising for happy juicing, the trustworthiness of such forums is under fire.
Due to CruiseCritic's ownership by TripAdvisor, which is in turn under the Expedia blanket of travel sites, a viral marketing stunt gone awry could possibly continue to negatively ripple. Does news like this affect your ability to trust good reviews on travel sites, or do you already consider yourself an excellent shill-spotter enough to weed out the solicited from the unsolicited? While this whole ordeal is mired in serious muckety-muck, let's hope it serves as a lesson for future viral marketers and as an argument for transparency.
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