2022 Bronze Travel and Leisure

Agency: Armadillo

Client: Cunard

Campaign Name: Queen Anne - The Next In A Fine Line

Campaign Overview

With a brief to launch a new cruise ship two years before she'd be ready to set sail, the agency needed to reinforce the Cunard brand as the benchmark for luxury travel.

Strategy

The loyalty of Cunard’s highest-spending guests sees them book their favourite ships far in advance. The cruise line needed to drum up interest in a short space of time for its new Queen Anne vessel, in the knowledge passenger budgets may already have been committed to other trips.

The solution lay in segmentation: nearly 20,000 “loyals” identified as high spenders and repeat bookers; and more than 65,000 “potentials” who had cruised, booked or enquired before.

Both audiences were immersed in the beauty and splendour of Queen Anne via a luxurious invitation, with the segmentation used to weight the budget against the different audience needs.

Creativity

Loyals received an iconic, collectible and beautiful piece that would reinforce their value as a high-spending customer, and make adding Queen Anne to their existing repertoire irresistible.

Potentials also received a taste of luxury in a cost-effective version designed to tempt them over the booking line.

Both versions were environmentally friendly, offering an exclusive glimpse in the form of a carefully curated 16-page book and a QR code for booking, before social media and trade partner campaigns went live.

Results

Queen Anne's 2024 maiden voyage sold out in less than a day, with over £17m-worth of bookings across the fleet generated from mailed guests alone. The packs garnered a 46:1 ROI, and are so sought-after they’re now traded on eBay.

The Team

Armadillo - Hannah Waters, Executive Creative Director - Charlie Bulmer, Conceptual Copywriter - Carolyn Carswell, Conceptual Copywriter - Zona Lewin, Senior Designer - Linzi Hole, Group Account Director - Nancy Seogalutze, Account Director - Henry Evans, Senior Account Manager

Cunard - Louisa Gould, Senior CRM Manager - Jess Long, CRM Campaigns Manager - Dave Jones, Marketing Director - Tony Graham, CRM Insight Analyst

Contributors

MBA Group