Celebrity Cruises: Beyond Borders

I chose this ad initially because it's just scenically beautiful and I'm a sucker for great visuals—especially natural landscapes. But after watching this a couple times I realize it's not just any old inspiring message, it's political. It opens "Far from the talk of building walls...far from the rhetoric of fear" the entire message is directly addressing the political climate, which I find fascinating. I mean it would be hard to disagree with this message, but for a brand to leverage politics to promote vacationing as an escape is kind've brilliant, at least in their subtle execution. I feel like half the people who are exposed to this will not hear the political undertones as they're dazzled by foreign imagery, which is cool in its own right.

I think the objective here is to leverage the public's political exasperation to call to mind values of diversity and position Celebrity Cruises as the company that can help people celebrate cultural differences around the world. The message really works quite neatly for a travel company. Oftentimes I feel many commercials that attempt such a powerful message fail because it doesn't fit well with their offering or it's not presented well, but here Celebrity Cruises has done both perfectly.

I believe the target has to be those who identify as having an open mind and who seek rich cultural experiences abroad, and certainly not Trump supporters as this ad directly calls him out. The message board even has quite a few people bragging about Trump and trashing this campaign.

I'm not sure that brands should engage politically unless it's tied deep to their core values, but this was done quite well.