(Everyone get out your corporate bingo cards.)
There’s actually a very simple way to increase ROI. Spend less money.
That means reducing costs and leveraging efficiencies.
One obvious way to do that is not hyper-targeting your audience so aggressively that the campaign barely reaches anyone.
When you narrow the audience too much, CPMs go up, delivery gets worse, and the message barely gets out. In effect you’re spending more money to reach fewer people.
Sometimes the more efficient move is simply expanding the audience a bit so the system can actually distribute the ad instead of choking it off.
That means you might spend (purely theoretical numbers for this exercise) $100 to reach 10k people instead of $1000 to reach 1k.
So if you’re seeing these ads, it’s because someone already ran the math and decided that reaching you was worth the marginal cost.
In other words, this wasn’t an accident. And you’re probably not the first person in the room to think about it.
I don’t think targeting a 14-17 year old with “little kids” ads for Oceaneer's Club or cringe AquaMouse ads instead of targeted to 14-17 year olds is not going to make the campaign not reach anyone, frankly it would perform better.
It would not only actually cause a kid to potentially beg their parents to go, it could have an ability to go viral if done cleverly, but beyond that would actually appeal to that age demographic, which Royal Caribbean corners in the targetted ads I speak of: they don’t advertise gambling to 17 year olds but they sure are going to advertise Coco Cay, the food, the dancing, the shows, etc.
That wouldn’t change Disney’s brand at all: they appeal to everyone. That’s the Disney difference, and if they have a TikTok ad running, have your high quality general ad with the demos targeted that work, but have other ads running on a smaller scale targeting people.
There is a MASSIVE public perception gap in what DCL is (for little kids with families) versus what it is (primarily for families with kids of any age, but still fun for anyone).
They’re already spending money on targeted ads, they might as well do it right. Disney doesn’t understand that people aren’t doing Disney ships just to go to some “lounge” they’re there for the whole experience.
Marketing wise they push things (like a lounge) they in focus groups deliver an interest and then people see the rest while on the cruise and return based on that complete experience. I’m not saying Disney doesn’t know how to market generally for the family cruising niche.
That can all still happen while not wasting money on an ad for say a 25 year old that shows off really cringey AquaMouse rides, instead of you know someone who’s say 22, an influencer or something doing it, or pair that with snorkeling at Castaway, showcase ports of call, Serenity Bay, show off Palo; the fact it’s a vacation where at dinner you’re together but you can have “time away” from the little kids, show off the musicals, show off the adult night comedy/musical/magician acts, silent DJ. You don’t have to have them all in one ad make an ad showcasing one specific thing like the AquaMouse ad that isn’t cringey. Disney just plays things way too safe and bureaucratic.
Please tell me you understand…
Because that’s all I’m saying. I agree with most of your points
