Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Caught Paying People to Lie on Cruise Comment Web Sites

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29685207/
By Anita Dunham-Potter
Travel columnist
Mon., March. 16, 2009
Well-regarded travel author Edward Hasbrouck called the Royal Champions “shills” and Royal Caribbean “puppet masters” in his blog. Cruise Critic posters are furious because they feel they’ve been unknowingly duped by Royal Caribbean’s marketing scheme in addition to being censored by Cruise Critic. Marketing experts are scratching their heads in a what-were-they-thinking way.

This is to be expected from the cruise industry that makes huge campaign donations and pays large lobbying fees to get Congressman to lie and an industry that has been known to pressure the main stream media to tone down negative news stories.
Columnist Anita Dunham-Potter describes how she was harrassed and intimidated by paid members of the Royal Champions who are explained below.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29554810/
"After writing Moran’s story last May, I, too, was not immune to hundreds of negative blog comments and e-mails about my reporting of her story. The sheer number of negative commentary on this story made me wonder if it was indeed coordinated. There were a number of posts that were similar in content and style to e-mails that I received. Upon checking IP addresses (a number that is assigned to a computer by an Internet service provider to be its permanent address on the Internet) I was able to match a number of nasty blog posts on ExpertCruiser to e-mails sent to me by two members that identified themselves as Royal Champions..."

Public Relations

Royal Caribbean Caught Infiltrating Review Sites With Viral Marketing Team'Meet the "Royal Caribbean Champions," a group of fifty prolific posters to popular online communities that Royal CaribbeanCruise Critic, one of the main targets of the program, are understandably pissed. rewards with special access and free cruises in exchange for their frequent and positive commentary. The Champions were outed by their creators, the Customer Insight Group, which boasted on their company blog that the potent group is "regularly leveraged for ongoing marketing initiates. Members of the popular reviewing site

The Customer Insight Group provides an excellent summary of the pernicious program's goals:

Identifying Brand Advocates: Royal Caribbean worked with Nielsen Buzz Metrics to identify enthusiastic online supporters of Royal Caribbean. Using a combination of automated and manual techniques, they identified online communities that discuss Royal Caribbean Cruises. Relying on data mining software and human expertise in word-of-mouth analysis, they measured awareness, identifying emergent qualitative themes of discussion on blogs, travel forums, usernets to gain a better understanding of how consumers discuss Royal Caribbean cruises. Fifty Royal Caribbean Champions were chosen for both quality and quantity of posts with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics. While Champions were primarily found on Cruise Critic, they also posted on travel communities, usenet groups, travel blogs and personal journals.

Influencing Brand Advocates: In May 2007, the Royal Champions community of online enthusiasts was invited to their first big event, the pre-inaugural sailings of our newest ship Liberty of the Seas in New York and Miami. This was the first time in the company's history that invitees to pre-inaugural sailings were "ordinary people" i.e. not VIP's, corporate executives, or top producing travel agent. Royal Caribbean hosted ship and stateroom tours and cocktail parties with executives. President Adam Goldstein hosted the New York party and CEO Richard Fain hosted the Miami party. The events generated abundant positive word-of-mouth on various sites and created a cohesive community of Royal Caribbean online enthusiasts that are regularly leveraged for ongoing marketing initiatives.

Measuring Success: While difficult to measure precisely, based on observation and anecdotal evidence we are confident that the Royal Champions produce ample word of mouth and exert sufficient influence to make the investment worthwhile. Posts from Royal Champions are carefully monitored during events and on a regular basis to ensure that posts remain positive and frequent.

The program's existence by itself isn't objectionable. Every industry is a carrier for public relations parasites, but most so-called public relations professionals adhere to a code of conduct that includes a clear disclosure of their affiliation. As the Customer Insight Group acknowledges, "the key to success in viral marketing is to subtly influence the influencers without them overtly realizing they are being influenced."

Since their posts are "carefully monitored," Royal Caribbean Champions should be required to clearly disclose their role as Royal Caribbean mouthpieces so other readers can fairly and fully evaluate their comments.

Influencing Brand Advocates [Customer Insight Group Loyalty Blog]
Default Royal Champions Vereses the rest of us [Cruise Critic via Tripso]