Chapter Thirty-five
Thirty-five
‘Here we go again my darlin’s,’ Brooke trilled from across the boardroom where she sat starry-eyed next to Greg.
I was starting to wonder if she was an AI bot.
‘This is a truly bizarre situation, and please allow me to apologise to y’all for dismissing the idea that Amplify had cheated.
It’s just not in my nature to think badly of people and I truly believed those boys had the purest of hearts. ’
‘Not at all,’ Heidi said, graciously.
Greg harumphed. ‘Can we please get on with it.’
‘Sure thing, sugar,’ Brooke said. ‘I’ll hand it over to you gals then. Please, take it away.’
Our boards were in position, and I stood up ready to reveal them one by one. We were going to blow their minds.
‘Cruising is having a moment right now,’ Heidi said, flashing them both a smile. ‘Once purely the realm of the rich and retired, the perception of cruising as a see-it-all have-it-all option for the younger generation is starting to emerge, and we need to double down on it in our PR.’
‘Amen,’ Brooke said, stirring her coffee.
‘We all know this generation live on their phones. They can travel the world without ever leaving the house through their tiny screen. All they need do is type a city name into the search box on YouTube or Tik Tok and someone out there will have been there, filmed it and shared it. They have zero attention span and a desperation for the “new”. The untouched. The space where no one else has been – where no one could even imagine to be. And we can give that to them. You can give that to them.’
Greg looked about ready to nod off. We weren’t telling him anything new.
‘And so, we propose a global PR campaign to get people talking about those hidden gems, to reconsider cruising beyond the obvious.’
I turned the first board, like a magician’s assistant.
‘Unimaginable moments from Excalibur Cruises. You already love the line, now let me walk you through the executions.’
I turned the second and third boards, which were full of beautiful faces.
‘Fronted by influencers and YouTubers and the many different celebs out there who use crew, crews and cruise as part of their identity. Lana Cruise, Annabelle Cruz, The Surf Shack Crew… all brands in their own right, with access to ten million subscribers between them – and that’s allowing for a generous amount of crossover. ’
‘Never heard of them,’ Greg barked, his silver hair glinting under the fluorescent lights.
‘These are the people influencing the next generation,’ Brooke said, gently. ‘And we do need to meet the young people where they are.’
‘One payment, one cruise, a hundred ways to look at it. I’ll let the work speak for itself. Kat?’
I was poised and ready to postulate. ‘Absolutely. Unimaginable moments can’t be pre-planned, so this becomes a game of one-upmanship that can be accessed by anyone. It’s not about money, but experiences, available to all – and everyone can play.’
Heidi jumped in. ‘This audience use firsts as their currency – they don’t just want to live their best life – they want to be seen to be living it.
Social media is their proof platform, and this campaign will help them see cruising is the best way to do that.
There is no frame of reference for what might happen on an Excalibur cruise. ’
Greg’s face started to soften, despite looking at photos of kids he’d never heard of and an idea that felt alien to his generation.
‘The beauty of this campaign is its stretchability. It works at all levels from your average nine-to-five Gen Z on minimum wage all the way up to major celebrities. We target the audience with the stories that will resonate most.’
‘For example…?’ Greg said, steepling his fingers.
I pulled out our hero image and Brooke gasped. A couple swimming in bioluminescence, under the stars. ‘Wowzers!’
I smiled. ‘Exactly.’
Greg put his glasses on and leant forward. ‘Wow, where is that?’
We’d got them both.
‘On an Excalibur cruise of course,’ Heidi chipped in, delighted with their reaction.
‘Is it?’ Greg looked a little closer. ‘Oh, yes. I see it now.’
‘Esmeralda has docked in the background,’ I said, pointing to the image with my pen. ‘And this couple have found a little piece of heaven for an on-shore swim.’
I pulled up another board and handed it to them. ‘Then here we have a group of friends volcano screeing in the Azores.’
‘That looks incredible,’ Greg said, turning to Brooke. ‘Is this possible to do?’
‘Sure is. And it wouldn’t be the kind of thing our regular passengers would go for.’
‘We’ve got hundreds of ideas on this, but the real stories will come from our customers and that’s where the crew idea can stretch beyond influencers.
Cruising with your girl crew, your uni crew, your rowing crew – and of course we would showcase Esmeralda’s crew as well. They’ll have some stories to tell.’
‘Hell yeah – plenty of juicy tales to be shared there. Barbie Queue alone is a whole TikTok waiting to happen,’ Brooke said.
‘How does this translate into PR?’ Greg asked with a frown.
‘And how the hell are we gonna afford Lana Cruise?’ Brooke guffawed. ‘She won’t be handing us her ten million audience for free.’
‘We can work on the influencer list depending on the budget. The most important consideration is landing on what Gen Z want in a holiday. What is the sell here? And the answer is simple. On a macro scale they want the same as we all do. Value for money, experiences they can boast about, and to make the most of their annual leave. On a micro level, they want to be with like-minded people and have some guaranteed fun. Whatever fun looks like for them. The genius of cruising is that it gives them all of this and more. Like a skeleton key, it fits all locks, and our PR campaign will help them see that for themselves.’
I turned the next three boards over and propped them against some books.
‘Message in a bottle. We will ask our current customers to write a message to the cruisers of the future and put them in a small bottle. The first thousand people to find these bottles aged between twenty and thirty will get to go on a “voyage of discovery”. A free cruise where they can blog and post and share their journey. A viral campaign on a global scale to encourage a whole new audience that wouldn’t otherwise have considered cruising, to do so. ’
Heidi joined in. ‘We want Esmeralda to speak for herself. We don’t need to do a hard sell on cruising; we just need to turn the experience inside out.
Most people see these behemoth boats on the water and have no idea of the box of delights inside.
Of how delicious the food is, how friendly the team are, how much adventure you can pack into two weeks when you’re on the water.
Excalibur are best in class after all, so why not let the product do the talking? ’
Greg sat back in his chair, arms crossed, then slowly started to nod. ‘I’m an old man these days, and I know nothing about tikking and tokking, but I do know that we give our customers a damn good time at a damn good price. Our reviews tell us week after week.’
‘But they ain’t getting any younger,’ Brooke said. ‘We’ll take their dollars while they’ve got ’em, but we need to keep fillin’ that funnel full of fresh young cruisers. We must find a way to get a new audience in.’
‘And this could absolutely be it,’ Greg said with a snap of his fingers. ‘I’ll write one of the letters myself. As a top prize ticket. They can sit next to me at the captain’s table… or if that’s not exciting enough for them, next to Lana – whoever she is.’
‘The ultimate Cruise,’ Heidi said, turning over more boards. ‘Our crew, your Cruise.’
‘We plan to hide some of the bottles in the virtual world as well,’ I said, revealing the final board.
‘In the spaces where this audience spends their time. Fortnite, Minecraft, they will stumble upon the bottles with instructions on what to do with them. It will be like finding a VIP ticket to the Superbowl in your pocket.’
Greg slammed the table and stood up. ‘I love it. Brooke – I’ll leave you to wrap up and sort contracts.’ He shook my hand firmly, then Heidi’s. ‘Excellent stuff, ladies. Good to have you back on board.’
‘We never left,’ Heidi said, her voice trembling.
Brooke chuckled to herself as he stalked out. ‘Well, there’s your answer ladies. No room for misinterpretation there.’
‘Really?’ I asked, too scared to believe it.
‘Really. You’ve got yourself the Excalibur Cruises account back.’