Why is this work relevant for Media?

Facing the tides of brand stereotype, fixed itineraries and seasonality issue among countries, we crafted "Cruising to the Dream Performance" to tackle the performance instability. There are 3 main focuses - audience customization, making cruise as an entertainment destination, and fly-cruise. We examined carefully the customer behavior of each media channel, then we maximized the impact of them by designating insight-driven ad messages to cater customer needs while boosting transaction revenue. The new eCommerce strategy has incorporated different data streams and behavioral insights from various media channels. It successfully boosted the YoY transactions and revenue by 146% and 119% respectively.

Background

Dream Cruises mainly sail in Asia where the cruise industry suffers from an intrinsic perception that it has an elderly retired clientele. Over 50% of the cruise passengers are 50+ years old and 70% of them book cruise vacation through travel agents. Unlike other traditional hospitality options with higher flexibility, cruise industry is limited to Fixed homeport & Itineraries so therefore Country Seasonality Optimization plays a crucial role given the limited budget. Despite the huge business obstacle of product limitation & misconception, Asia cruise travelers hit a record high of over 4M passengers, which shows promising business potential for Dream Cruises’. With proper eCommerce strategy being in place, we will be able to catch Asia’s rising tide of Asia eCommerce. To further grow our business, we need to 1) grow online sales volume with customizations, improve cost-efficiently by expanding to international markets, and 3) create tactics to maximize seasonality performance.

Describe the creative idea/insights (30% of vote)

The historical set up of cruises focuses on individual channel/country performance. This has created disconnection of data & insight resulting in unknowns and unstable performance. We have consolidated 4 essential factors for a best voyage. 1. Passengers Online channels represents less than 1% of total transactions. This is because of the lack of knowledge about the product, going to travel agents is the hassle free method of booking & researching for cruise information. 2. Entertainment From client’s customer survey, Cruise tour is in a lower priority against air/land travel due to product preposition. We need to transform the assumption of cruising from for-retiree to “Entertainment destination for EVERYONE”, especially Young Audience. 3. Location It's important to break free from location limitation as growth of homeport has been stale based on business data. 4. Seasonality Country specific holidays and seasonality became one of the dominant factors to enhance overall business ROI.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

1. Passengers To motivate the potential passengers and grow online revenue, instead of only deploying price-centric ad messages, we changed the creative direction to feature-based messaging for our target segments, e.g. Day care creatives for Family with babies, Hassel free planning for group travelers, Entertainment/Concert message for young audience, etc. 2. Entertainment We see the opportunity to influence young generations making cruise the “Cool & Hip” entertainment destination that they can enjoy any moment they are onboard rather than a boring transportation with not much happening. 3. Location Enquires grew by 47% YoY related to “fly-cruise” – flying from other places to take cruise trip. The need of expanding ad investment to non-homeport countries is then realized to drive incremental growth. 4. Seaonlity We have created a season-centric matrix, combining public holidays, historical data and fluid moment (ad hoc situations), mapping and adjusting based on different event moments.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We launched content affiliates, social page partners and feature specific banners to educate audience that cruising is an exciting journey, by providing them inspirations of different ways of cruise travel, e.g. go on weekend cruise with significant half, or go on family trip with kids-friendly facilities, or even enjoy a luxurious trip with all services included. We also retarget the content ad viewers with online exclusive packages, e.g. Onboard Wifi bundle, Dining Package. We went beyond geo and interest targeting, applied premium 3rd party travel data to identify users in the new markets who booked airline tickets to homeport countries but not accommodation to reduce wastage. After educating users that Dream Cruises is their entertainment destination. We derived insights from CRM, Paid analysis & 3rd party user behavior to create Country Specific products and target users with over 64+ Custom messaging made for their culture/behavior together with Segment Traits.

List the results (30% of vote)

Conv% Improved By 42% YoY Revenue Increased By 119% YoY Transactions Increased By 146% YoY Age 25-34 Transactions Increased by 440% YoY Apart from commercial benefits, Dream Cruises has successfully extended their eCommerce business from 2 markets to 8 markets in APAC in 1 year. The data signals collected allow us to further grow the campaign along with more sophisticated marketing technologies in the future. 1. 64+ Custom messages and segments are created for better business insights. 2. Direct online booking increased from less than 1% to over 18% in past 12 months. Lower reliance on travel agents or OTAs result with lower operational cost and higher business ROI. 3. Audience Insights found from "Cruising to the Dream Performance" approach are feedbacked to the wider corporate team to craft more locally related offers and products, ultimately Drove more revenue for the whole business.