Celebrity Cruises has launched a multi-million-dollar global advertising campaign aimed at promoting cruising to each and every person around the world.
With the tagline, “Journey Safe, Journey Wonderfull,” the campaign taps into experiencing the world from the perspective of a Celebrity ship. According to Celebrity, the campaign blends “new luxury experiences” with “places and people at its heart,” doubling down on a message of inclusivity.
The campaign opens by posing the question, “How many precious moments have we missed?”, before taking the viewer on a journey of experiences one might not immediately associate with a cruise. The ad is set to a remix of Louis Armstrong’s ballad, “What a Wonderful World.”
According to a press release, the video also reminds viewers that there are new safety considerations in today’s travel environment that Celebrity Cruises takes seriously. Like many other travel brands, Celebrity Cruises paused its operations in March 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
After nearly 16 months, it became the first cruise operator to sail with passengers from North America, and then, the first to sail from a U.S. port when the Celebrity Edge left Fort Lauderdale on June 26, 2021, for a seven-night cruise of the Caribbean. The brand requires all crew and eligible guests to be fully vaccinated in order to board a Celebrity Cruises ship.
Celebrity Cruises President and Chief Executive Officer, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo said: “It took enduring a pandemic, where we were literally cut off from each other and the world, to recognize how powerful and meaningful travel is in our lives. It’s not just a vacation. Travel is a journey – where our hearts and minds are filled with new people, new experiences, new realizations about ourselves and the world around us. And, as the first cruise line back in service in North America, we saw an opportunity to not just re-emerge, but reframe the Celebrity Cruise experience through this lens.”
“Our new advertising campaign poses a question, ‘isn’t it time?’ And with the time and care we have put into our new health and safety measures, we think it is. It is time to see the world and each other, again, on one of the safest vacations possible,” Lutoff-Perlo added.
According to Celebrity, the campaign soft-launched last week with out-of-home executions targeting U.S. Open tennis fans. The brand has started online placements today, which will be complemented by print and TV.
A 60-second version of the television commercial premiering tonight during primetime NFL Football, and can also be viewed online, seeks to challenge “many of the stereotypes and cliches that surround cruising,” Celebrity said.
Michael Scheiner, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Celebrity Cruises noted: “As a new luxury travel company, we’re about the fullness of the travel experience. When you choose Celebrity Cruises, you’re choosing the best of everything: it’s a luxury hotel, it’s Michelin-quality dining, it’s a luxury spa retreat, it’s seeing all four corners of the world and meeting different people from different cultures.”
He continued: “This campaign tears up every cliche and stereotype that exists about cruising, and this is just the beginning of this type of work … (and the campaign) is, in part, an allegorical tale of equality and diversity. We wanted the audience to, yes, marvel at the rich fullness of a Celebrity cruise, but we also wanted to draw attention to the diversity of people who travel with us and who you meet on your journey. I think we as an industry need to do more to celebrate and accurately represent in our advertising everyone who travels.”
According to the press release, the launch of the ad campaign also kicks off a “major brand refresh” that will include overhauling the look and feel of Celebrity Cruises’ social presence, including a reset of its Instagram account that is representative of the brand’s message of “Wonderfull” experiences.
