Ocean Village Cruises £1million Advertising Campaign

Ocean Village has unveiled details of its new multi-platform advertising campaign, launching 15 September, to support its 2009 programme. The heavy weight campaign, across television, radio and print media, will focus on the Granada, Central, Yorkshire and for the first time West Country TV regions with a £1 million spend.

The TV creative follows on from Ocean Village’s first two television campaigns in January and May 2008 and features the familiar voice of Tamzin Outhwaite and exploits the distinctive hot colours of the Ocean Village logo.

The 30 second TV ad will feature on ITV1 in the Yorkshire Granada, Central and Meridian regions from 15 September 2008 in a 5 week heavyweight campaign targeting the key 35-54 year old age group with an emphasis on peak time programming.  The creative plays upon the brand’s strapline ‘the cruise for people who don’t do cruises’ and features a £599 lead price for a week’s fly-cruise in the Mediterranean. A strong TEXT call to action promotes booking with The Co-operative Travel in the Granada, Yorkshire and Central regions and with Harvey World Travel in the West Country region. The Co-operative Travel group is the largest travel group in the north west of England.

As with the previous 2008 campaigns, the execution features pseudo-animation and reinforces Ocean Village’s laid-back, casual cruising message.  It opens on a Caribbean beach scene as a girl walks along the surfline until mountain bikers shift the action to a jeep safari at the pyramids.  A camel ride moves the scene to a café table and gondola in Venice before landing on the top deck of the ship for some  R&R.

The commercial was developed by the in-house Ocean Village team in partnership with production house Tigervision.

Complementing the TV activity is a 40 second radio advertising campaign on Century and Smooth in Granada, Real Radio and Radio Aire in Yorkshire, Heart in the Central Midlands region, Magic and Heart in London, Total GWR in the West Country, Ocean, Wave, Southern in the Meridian region and Radio Forth and Clyde in Scotland.  Nationally, talkSport will also feature the radio creative.  The radio ads  feature the voice of Tamzin Outhwaite with a call to action through the Co-operative Travel Group and Harvey World Travel in the appropriate regions and through ABTA travel agents in the London and Meridian regions as well as nationally.

Instore marketing materials for the travel agencies include POS visuals which reinforce the distinctive TV visuals, bunting and six foot column display units.

The broadcast campaign is supported by a national 6 week print media campaign in key midmarket and quality papers, featuring a mix of inserts and advertorials.

In addition, a direct mail campaign to over 250,000 new and existing customers,  supports the marketing push with creative focusing on this winter’s Caribbean holidays and next summer’s getaways to the Med.

Comments Gill Haynes, Head of Marketing, Ocean Village, ‘On the back of our first two TV ad campaigns in January and June this year, sales have increased significantly in the key regions and prompted ad awareness has made a quantum leap, up from 25% to 42% among potential and current cruisers, with Ocean Village now vying for second place in the sector. We’re looking to build on this success with this autumn push, featuring a keen £599 lead price that represents Ocean, Wave, Southern in the Meridian region, great value for money in the current economic climate. With the Co-operative Travel Group and Harvey World Travel as partners, we are working with regional cruise specialists who can really get behind the campaign to drive enquiries through to sales.’

Official Press Release Ocean Village Cruises dated 8th September 2008. More information on Ocean Village Cruises can be found at Ocean Villages Cruises.