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With agent reference back in Carnival ads, retailers applaud

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With agent reference back in Carnival ads, retailers applaud

By Tom Stieghorst
CCL adCarnival Cruise Lines’ return to referencing travel agents during a call to action at the end of its TV commercials got a warm reception from several travel agents, although one suggested it was overdue.

“I think that’s fabulous,” said Monica Ambriz of Anytime Anywhere Travel in Antioch, Calif., outside San Francisco. “Anything that gets the word out that travel agents still exist is good.”

Carnival said that beginning this fall it will include a call-to-action feature at the end of its 30-second TV spots. It said the feature will suggest that viewers “contact a travel professional, Carnival.com or 1 (800) Carnival.” It didn’t specify whether the call-to-action will appear as a visual or be spoken in a voiceover.

A longer, 60-second version of the commercial will not feature the call to action, but will end with a simple image and brand logo, Carnival said.

Carnival said it last incorporated a call to action in its TV advertising in 2010.

“We’ve heard loud and clear from travel agents that in order to build business together, we need to do a better job of guiding the millions of consumers we reach through our marketing initiatives to contact a travel agent,” said Joni Rein, Carnival’s vice president of worldwide sales. “We are so excited to introduce this message with our new fall television campaign and hope it will drive visibility to the value of using a travel agent when consumers decide to book a cruise.”

Rein said the inspiration for returning to a call to action came from the line’s travel agent outreach program, Carnival Conversations, launched in early July. It has held agent forums on ships in New York, New Orleans and Port Canaveral, with more scheduled.

Some agents expressed mixed emotions about the TV plug.

“It’s about time!” said Marlys Aballi, owner of Connection to Cruise in Redlands, Calif., who said she feels that Carnival’s website has taken priority over travel agent referrals for too long.

Aballi said she sells quite a bit of Carnival, especially the shorter cruises out of West Coast ports, and she emphasized that Carnival isn’t the only cruise line that has sought to increase direct bookings.

She said Carnival could be doing more to help travel agents. A small example she cited would be to move the white space provided for travel agent contact information from the back of its brochures to the front.

Suggestions like that are what Carnival executives say they had in mind when they launched Carnival Conversations. In addition to the road shows, there were sections for travel agent feedback created on the GoCCL agent website.

Ideas adopted so far by Carnival after the program’s launch include a move to simplify the number of fare categories and promotional codes and reforms to make booking groups on Carnival easier and more rewarding.

Carnival plans a major marketing push this fall to fuel its recovery from a price slump that followed the Carnival Triumph engine fire in February. Agents are being wooed as part of the overall strategy.

Jo-Ann Moss, a Cruise Planners franchisee in West Linn, Ore., outside of Portland, said she’s encouraged by the attention.

“I’ve got some clients who won’t sail on anything but Carnival,” Moss said. “I’m thrilled for their renewed appreciation.”

Thomas Cook launches 24/7 social media ‘listening lab’

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Thomas Cook launches 24/7 social media ‘listening lab’

By Phil Davies

Thomas Cook launches 24/7 social media 'listening lab'Thomas Cook’s move to embrace social media has taken a step forward with the introduction of a dedicated 24/7 social media monitoring facility.

A specially trained social media listening team will provide real-time global brand reputation management, listening in over 180 languages to “chatter” around their brands.

The ‘Thomas Cook Listening Lab’ will identify social ‘brand champions’ who the company should be interacting with socially to help increase sales.

Data will also be collected to be used for future marketing campaigns and to provide insight on how to heighten social brand awareness.

The Lab will aid in crisis management, provide real time comparison of competitor brands and listen to all customer feedback.

The facility also features tools to engage with customers directly through countless social media channels.

Chief executive Harriet Green said: “We were the first major high street travel agency in the UK to offer online bookings, last year we had 310 million visits to our websites, ThomasCook.com was labelled #5 travel/e-travel site in 2012 eDigital Research Best Site benchmark and just this month our new mobile website was said to ‘set the standard’ and received a 10 out of 10 by travel technology consultant Paul Richer.

“As we expand our digital capabilities, my vision for Thomas Cook is to be the leading online tour operator and to have the highest share of bookings online.

“Our Thomas Cook Listening Lab will allow us to better position Thomas Cook as the leading travel authority by listening and monitoring customer sentiment, enabling us to discovering useful and valued information about our customers. The Listening Lab will further help our customer services team to better engage with our customers in active dialogues, and provide relevant, fresh and valuable content to key audiences.”

Global head of social media Jonathan Roberts added: “Being proactive and having to monitor thousands of social mentions a day can be difficult and time consuming, but with the Thomas Cook Listening Lab, coupled with social media listing experts, we are able to see and resolve social concerns with our social media customer care team.

“Monitoring is also instrumental in Thomas Cook’s success, whereby the real-time data collected through social media is ‘key’ in all future marketing, PR and advertising campaigns.

“We can also quickly see what is being discussed in real time about any of our major competitors or our own marketing campaigns, television adverts or product launches, and within hours, our marketing teams can create additional sales messages, and then direct fans via social platforms to learn more about special offers or holiday packages.

“Through the Listening Lab we now have the ability to target a specific customer base, for example if we want to target people in London who have recently tweeted, ‘I need a holiday’, we now have the tools to reach out to those people and make an informed pitch based on their online social profile; revealing their age, gender and likes and dislikes.”

The Lab features six large monitors, contains specially designed computers, with speakers, and a video conferencing camera that allows for meetings with regional marketing teams and to help co-ordinate with teams at live-location events.

There are four additional desktop systems for the purpose of social engagement with customers. The larger monitors show real-time tracking with various data visualisations and dashboards, aided by a variety of software integrated into a platform ideal for social media listening and engagement needs.