The challenge
The social travel space is crowded. To gain cut-through and engage existing and new audiences, we needed to create a distinctive social identity for P&O Cruises and harness social’s power to engage, entertain and create a strong sense of community.
To hit punchy KPIs and help P&O Cruises achieve its ambition to become the UK’s number one holiday choice, we needed a pioneering strategy that would look at new channels and the latest trends while keeping UGC, advocacy and the passions of our audience at its heart.
Our solution
From the get-go, we’ve adopted a data-led mindset to nurture existing audiences and reach new ones. Our test-and-learn approach keeps content fresh and effective. Our ambitious KPIs and rigorous reporting ensure we are agile and proactive. Robust competitor analysis helps us identify our own place in the cruise-holiday landscape. Our expertise in organic and paid strategies ensures that we target the right audiences with the right content at the right time.
Crucially, we’ve prioritised social-first, platform-native creative to be relevant, engaging and entertaining. Our social-first shoots push boundaries, including live posting to serve audiences with fresh, stimulating content that invites immediate responses.
To stay relevant and broaden our reach, we’ve pushed forward with new channels adding Pinterest and TikTok to our social armoury – the latter gives us the opportunity to showcase the excitement of cruise holidays to new audiences in a fast-paced, trend-led and authentic way (all the while retaining the brand’s identity).
We’re use influencers wisely and work hard to make sure brand partnerships come alive in relatable, relevant and channel-appropriate ways. Where appropriate, we create paid media strategies and campaigns to maximise reach and introduce extended audiences to the brand.
The results
The results are powerful.
In its first three months, TikTok gained over 17,000 followers (433% above target) with more than 57,000 profile views.
TikTok organic content generated 1.12m views (1,124% above target) while paid campaigns delivered more than 153m impressions.
Across all of our channels in 2024, we drove
31.6m
impressions
1.5m
engagements