Royal Caribbean ends controversial Royal Champions viral marketing campaign

mercedes · August 3, 2009

Royal Caribbean has ended a controversial viral marketing campaign that has drawn criticism from many in the industry.

Royal Caribbean's new senior vice president for marketing, Betsy O'Rourke, sent an email this week to participants in the Royal Champions program that said the line is shutting it down.

Royal Caribbean came under fire earlier this year from cruise enthusiasts, online cruise site operators and other industry watchers after the two-year-old program came to light. The program allegedly rewarded a small group of fans who posted positive comments about the line at online message boards with free cruises and other perks.

A Royal Caribbean executive who spoke earlier this year at a marketing conference said the aim of the program was to "subtly influence the influencers without them overtly realizing they were being influenced."

The Royal Caribbean executive told the audience Royal Champions "are regularly leveraged for ongoing marketing initiatives" and "produce ample word of mouth and exert sufficient influence to make the investment worthwhile," according to a blog on loyalty marketing written by the Customer Insight Group.

The blog also quoted the executive as saying online posts from Royal Champions "are carefully monitored during events and on a regular basis to ensure that posts remain positive and frequent."

Many outside observers saw the effort as a line-crossing manipulation of online cruise fan sites.

Spokespeople for all of Royal Caribbean's major competitors including Holland America, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess, Carnival and Celebrity said at the time they would never engage in such viral marketing campaigns at online message boards.

Paul Motter, the editor of online cruise site cruisecrazies.com, which has active cruise-focused message boards, blasted the program as soon as it became known.

"If there are any Royal Champions (posting on message boards) here at cruisecrazies we certainly did not authorize them to be here," he said at the time. "We were not contacted . . . to implement the program and had we been asked we would have said it violates our user agreement and privacy policy."