Oceania Cruises hires former DM to lead marketing (Score 53)
Oceania Cruises (OC) hired Frank Del Rio as chief sales and marketing officer. Del Rio was formerly a SVP at OC, making this his second stint with the company. He will now be responsible for global sales and marketing. This hire will affect the company's marketing strategy and could lead to agency reviews, so keep an eye on the cruise line.
According to iSpot, OC has not allocated any budget towards national TV ads YTD. It spent about $3k during "Sara's Weeknight Meals" during Q4 of 2021.
Per Pathmatics, OC earned 131.1m impressions YTD through desktop video ads (87%), desktop display ads (5%), Facebook ads (4%), mobile display ads (3%) and Instagram ads (1%). It placed the majority (92%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as youtube.com, facebook.com, instagram.com, thegardenisland.com and farespotter.net. It placed the remainder (8%) indirectly through Display & Video 360 and Yahoo DSP onto sites such as yahoo.com, hometalk.com, cruisecritic.com, sheknows.com and tripadvisor.com. It spent around $1.6m on digital display ads YTD, a huge jump from $216.2k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2021. Full-year spend increased from $914k in 2020 to $6.5m in 2021.
Sellers--OC appears to be targeting Gen-Xers and millennials through digital display ads. The company has been ramping digital spend up for a couple of years. It has not utilized national TV ads much over the past couple of years, but I would not be surprised if Del Rio decided to allocate more dollars towards the channel, considering its target audience. Sellers should start contacting the new marketing leader to find out more about his plans so that you can offer relevant ad space.
Agency & martech readers-- OC is not currently working with any agency partners to the best of my knowledge. As you know, marketing DMs commonly review their new company's agency roster. Start reaching out to Del Rio soon to be top-of-mind. Those of you with travel and hospitality experience may have an advantage.