Case Study | P&O Cruises - The PRIDE Cruise
Etcetera Etcetera in the P&O PRIDE Cruise Promotional video.
How JJW Studio supported P&O Cruises to reach 900,000 people through long-form video.
P&O Cruises proclaims they are “Like No Place on Earth.” The cruise liner approached JJW Studio to craft a social video campaign unlike anything else they’ve done before. And this got us excited!
Cruising Back on Board
When the pandemic haltered cruising the high seas for over two years in 2020, P&O Cruises got the green light to officially launch their gender and sexuality inclusive PRIDE Cruise, setting sail in late 2022.
To encapsulate the excitement of the cruise and its official launch, P&O felt a long-form comedic video geared for social would best highlight the key messaging that sailing the high seas was back on deck and it’s time to celebrate! Yes, we said it, long-form content. Shocker, right? Let us explain below why we feel so strongly about long-form video content.
From Stage to Screen
As part of the on-board entertainment, P&O has a bevy of queer talent performing and appearing on stage, including Hans (America’s Got Talent | Season 13), Etcetera Etcetera & Coco Jumbo (RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under | Season 1), DJ superstar Victoria Anthony and Athlete hunk Simon Dunn. P&O wanted to showcase this stellar line up in the campaign, and as such, they made up our entire cast and what ensured was endless inspiration when crafting the story.
From Page to Screen
We really wanted this video to play out like a reality TV show in the vein of Big Brother and RuPaul’s Drag Race! We took the long-form video route but promised ourselves we’d make it entertaining. Long-form video is still desirable so long as your story is ripe with likeable characters, has a substantial payoff and the visuals are memorable. But also, knowing where your most engaged audience lies will be super crucial to where your long-form video content sits. For P&O, it was Facebook with over 600,000 followers, and this became a big focus for them as video retention rates are much higher on Facebook.
What came from the strategy phase was a comedic story-driven piece that would feature the aforementioned talent in all their camp glory. During this phase, we bounced around ideas on post-it notes, researched long-form comedic content geared for social and watched classic reality TV such as Big Brother UK. Through this, we wrote a queer-centric script centred around celebration with touches of sketch comedy and doco-style TV.
We Cried on Set
From laughter, duh! Next steps, we went straight into production and would shoot all content across one day along the coast of Sydney amongst a sprawling mansion. The crew consisted of a director, producer, cinematographer, camera assistant, hair & makeup, a sound recordist, and the cast.
Each talent took our direction from the script and then elevated it with their own personal touches and nuances. Let us tell you right now, this was the funniest day on set we’ve ever encountered at JJW Studio!
JJW Studio handled all aspects of the production (except casting, P&O dealt with this aspect) from kick-off to final delivery, utilising up to 15 of our most trusted creatives from pre-production to post-production. Have a laugh below!
The Delivery of 18 Camp Assets
In addition to the long-form video, we also provided an additional 17 pieces of content. These included cutdowns for P&O, cutdowns for the talent’s owned digital channels, numerous digital channel aspect ratios, and more. Upon final delivery, it was showtime to witness the results come through.
Results Bigger Than a Splash
Through their paid, owned and earned media strategies, P&O drew the final results from the below outlets and platforms. Impressive!
Publications
63 pieces of lifestyle coverage
8 pieces of travel trade
Total Reach: 850,000
Facebook & Instagram
565+ engagements (comments + likes)
161 shares
27K video views
Total Reach: 53,000
Television
Hans made a splash when he appeared on both The Morning Show and Studio 10, where we shared his musings around sea men (!!!) and all the rest while select clips from our project were inserted throughout the piece.
All up, this is a combined reach of over 900,000. Take a look at some of the promotional highlights below.
The Public Has Spoken
The response across all digital channels was fantastic. P&O has a loyal and emotive connection with their customers, so it’s no surprise that the response was astounding when this project was released. Comments across Facebook and Instagram have come in, and the verdict is…
Enough with the “Thumb-Stopping” & “Snackable”
If you, like P&O, want to communicate a variety of messages through video and take a stylistic route that feels natural to your brand or client, it sounds like it’s time to consider long-form video content. People will stop the scroll and experience your video content IF the content is interesting and/or entertaining for the prolonged period of time. Short-form content has its own place, yes, but we’ve been missing these detailed and very entertaining long-form videos geared toward social. They exist, and they have a place!
Got a question or curious? Start a conversation with us here. 🤔📲
Together, let’s make every frame count!
