Carnival Turns to Samantha Brown to Teach People How to Cruise

Carnival isn’t sure if people really know how to cruise, so it turned to YouTube and travel television personality Samantha Brown in an attempt to educate consumers.

For over a decade, Brown’s show host tenure at Travel Channel has included Great Weekends, Passport to Europe, Passport to Latin America, and Great Hotels. Her new series 50/50 will air later this year.

“The content of the Samantha Brown video series aims to help consumers in their vacation planning journey by providing them clear, easy to understand answers on their common cruising questions,” Stephanie Evans-Greene, Vice President of Brand Communication at Carnival says. “We believe Samantha’s credibility and recognition as a travel expert works across all channels.”

As part of its launch, Carnival hosted a Twitter chat and had Brown takeover their account. Audiences joined the Q&A by hashtagging their tweets with #AskSamanthaBrown. After the session, they tweeeted a link to the YouTube channel showcasing a selection of videos.

You're in luck, first time cruisers! @CarnivalCruise & I launched a new series on Cruising 101 http://t.co/pVWBsbj373 http://t.co/RwgeBIjQKS

— Samantha Brown (@SamanthaBrown) February 5, 2015

To Carnival, video views is the return on investment that they are looking for. Evans-Greene said, “We’d like to see video views as well as earned views of our other YouTube channel content.”

Their YouTube custom tab features a branded experience with five videos in the “How to Cruise Series” that explains the basics of cruising; choosing the right trip and itinerary; how to get traveler’s money’s worth and professional cruiser tips. Each of the videos take the travelers aboard the Carnival Breeze to give viewers a more realistic experience of what vacation life is like, on board.

Here’s the first featured YouTube video in the series: