Global audience insights firm Fizziology tracked the Twitter conversations of more than 15,000 unique users engaging about cruise lines and has determined which brands are most and least successful at reaching their audiences in a new study.
Interesting to begin with are the 10 cruise lines that topped the list as most buzzed about, some of which are unexpected considering they are more niche players: Azamara Club Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, MSC Cruises, P&O Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Saga Cruises and Windstar Cruises.
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Cruise line engagement was also tracked specific to nine broad and specific demographics: experienced travelers, moms, dads, high schoolers, college students, bargain shoppers, boomers, African Americans and Hispanics.
Clearly, from the graph, the most significant winner is Carnival for succeeding at targeting bargain shoppers first and foremost and also college students to a lesser degree. Not shown on the graph, however, is just how much more the line scored with dads (855.3 percent) while also resonating with moms (193.3 percent), high schoolers (275.9 percent), African American (128.6 percent) and Hispanics (34.1 percent).
Inversely, it's interesting how poorly Disney Cruise Line connected with experienced travelers, college students, bargain shoppers and boomers on the graph. In fact, the brand only ranked positively with moms (49.9 percent) and African Americans (4.8 percent.) Otherwise, it altogether spoke the least to those over 50.
P&O also only ranked positively among two groups: high schoolers (6.2 percent) and African Americans (90.5 percent). The line did not do so well with the remainder, those over 50 also included.
Windstar actually did the best with boomers (189.5 percent) with Saga placing second among those over 50 (46.2 percent). Holland America Line which is stereotypically associated with older, in reality, came in fourth here (23.8 percent) behind Celebrity (25.9 percent) on the graph.
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Impressively hitting two sweet spots, Celebrity also hit it out of the park considerably with college students and a bit with experienced travelers. Bargain shoppers it would seem, however, do not perceive the line as particularly affordable.
Per the graph, corporate cousin Royal Caribbean also moves the dial some but not as much with college students and a small fraction with bargain shoppers. Not hearing the company's voice, though, are experienced travelers and boomers.
One group that both premium competitors Celebrity Cruises and Holland America Line are doing particularly well with are Hispanics with the former coming in at 69.2 percent and the latter at 94.5 percent. Royal Caribbean also scored high with the demo at 60.4 percent.
Meanwhile, sitting above both premium brands in the upscale category, Azamara Club Cruises came in high among experienced travelers (96.9 percent), college students (65.8 percent) and Hispanics (59.3 percent). The study says the line's announcement to head to Cuba specifically drove 5 percent of the conversation.
Of course, Twitter is only one social media channel, and total marketing efforts target multiple outlets. Facebook is likely to tell a very different story, for instance. Either way, the insights gleaned here are still telling.
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Another takeaway is the possible effectiveness of Twitter itself at achieving cruise industry advertising goals. Yes, these may be the most buzzed about cruise lines. However, there still could be others that perhaps trend less but are still heard loud and clear by their target audiences.
Among those lines that are trending, Carnival has the Midas touch, and Disney and P&O have the most room to improve. Other than those three, the pair to keep an eye on for resonating with the biggest current markets of boomers and millennials are Windstar and Celebrity respectively-at least of Twitter's buzziest that is.
One final consideration is whether or not Disney and P&O are really even failing in this scenario. Carnival purposefully goes after a wide swath of people to fill a very large fleet, but Disney only has four ships, plus moms have always been the line's bread and butter for getting families onboard. So, the company is actually winning. P&O, on the other hand, might have more of an uphill battle as high schoolers are less likely to have the disposable income needed to afford their own cruise.
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