Testing the Waters with Dori: Appreciating Consumer Advertising

If you watch any TV at all, chances are you’ve seen an advertisement for a cruise line or two. I rarely go a day without seeing an ad for MSC Cruises, Celebrity, Viking, or NCL.

Furthermore, anyone watching the Super Bowl this year and staying for the commercials will get to see MSC’s much-touted ad featuring Drew Barrymore and Orlando Bloom.

These commercials do a great job creating brand recognition and driving business to the advertiser.

But do they also do a great job driving business to travel advisors?

Of course, anything that raises consumer awareness of travel in general is beneficial to advisors. But in a quantifiable way? I’ve always wondered.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from numerous advisors that clients (either new or existing) calling to book their first-ever river cruise often ask for Viking by name. There’s little doubt that the abundance of Viking commercials is driving river cruise curious travelers to travel advisors.

Is that response the rule, then? Or is Viking the exception?

A few weeks back, I got a press release from the Globus family of brands touting the success of their “This is How You Europe” ad campaign for Avalon Waterways.

“Delivering more than 11M impressions to date, Avalon is making waves for travel advisor partners, bringing them more leads and, ultimately, commissions, connecting them with engaged, cruise-ready clients,” the press release noted.

I hadn’t seen the commercial yet, so I checked it out. It starts off unlike any other river cruise commercial you may have seen before with actor Graham McTavish dressed up in his “Outlander” battle apparel fighting off – and this is part of what makes it so fun – Vikings. Though the commercial also shows the typical day-in-the-life aspect of river cruising, the adventure movie quality of the commercial is what sets it apart. 

The press release went on to claim that the commercial not only raises awareness for Avalon, but “also positions travel advisors as the gateway to these sought-after vacations.” (It’s worth noting here that there were two versions of this commercial. One, sent to advisors to include in their own marketing, included a call to action to contact your travel advisor, The main version has no CTA at all.)  

Beyond the claim that Avalon was “bringing them [advisors] more leads,” Globus didn’t provide any details on how successful this campaign actually was at driving business to advisors, so we did a little digging.

“I actually did get some bookings from it,” Zena Beaver, CTC, owner of Pennsylvania-based Travel Depot told me, adding that she believes the eye-catching nature of the commercial is what’s driving business.

“That type of commercial is like, ‘Is this a new movie?’ It just grabs you,” she said.

While she can’t correlate all her new Avalon bookings with the commercial, she said that “lately” there’s been “a boom.”

“About every other day I was booking another cruise since the first of the year,” she told me.

One of the bookings is from a new client who saw the commercial; another booking (a group of three cabins) was a past client who saw the ad when Beaver posted it to her social media. 

For Margo McDonough of Blue Skies Travel Center, the new ad has yet to result in a booking but has generated interest that’s trickling back to her.  For instance, she told us about one client who saw the ad while watching TV on Hulu. It caught her attention and got her thinking about how an Avalon river cruise could be a good vacation to do with her adult children.

They’re now working together on choosing an Avalon sailing for the family.

Clearly, these commercials are doing some of the heavy lifting for advisors, which is great news for advisors. Any time someone else can take some of the marketing burden off of the shoulders of advisors, it’s a good thing.

As always, I’d love to hear from you on this. Do you think these supplier commercials, whether on TV or online, help your business?

Have you ever made a booking that was driven by a client (either new or existing) seeing a commercial that inspired them to act on it?

Do you use these commercials in your own marketing, the way Beaver did by posting the commercial on her social media?

Let me know at dsaltzman@travelmarketreport.com.