UPDATE:
Several hours after Tnooz posted a story exposing Carnival Cruise Lines’ first social media policy for travel agents, which would go into effect Jan 1, 2010, the cruise line conceded it erred and will amend the policy.
“It wasn’t our intent for the social media guidelines to be as far-reaching as the current wording would indicate,” says CCL spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz.
“We are re-examining the wording and will be making some adjustments so it is more clearly explained what requires written approval and what doesn’t.”
De la Cruz says the amendments will apply to CCL’s policy only. She was unsure how Carnival Corp.’s other North America brands would handle social media policy.
The spokeswoman says CCL’s goal is to modify its 2010 travel agency policy “very quickly”.
“Clearly, the wording was over-reaching and that wasn’t our intent,” de la Cruz says, adding that the Tnooz story spurred the about-face.
At this juncture, she declined to outline the specifics of the planned changes.
A closer examination of the wording, de la Cruz adds, proved the policy needed to be modified.
CCL has long restricted travel agents’ use of trademarks in marketing and promotional materials, in part to clamp down on unauthorized discounting. Transitioning that policy to social media is where the cruise line apparently ran into some problems.
Without seeing the substance of the planned changes, it is impossible to evaluate CCL’s new social media.
ORIGINAL POST:
Carnival Cruise Lines intends to introduce a new travel agency policy that bars partners from using any Carnival trademark or intellectual property on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn or a blog – any social media website, really – without prior written approval.
This is Carnival’s first social media policy for travel agents, and it’s a bruiser.
Travel agencies violating the policy, which social media purists might say amounts to a form of censorship, could lose their right to book the line’s sailings and commissions.
If social media is supposed to shine sunlight on friendships, vacations, business, news and trends, Carnival’s shortsighted policy seems to be drawing a steel curtain.
The policy, set to start 1 January 2010, covers travel agents’ use of dozens of Carnival’s trademarks ranging from Carnival Miracle and Fun Online to The World’s Most Popular Cruise Line and Skipper’s Club.
If this post was written by a CCL travel agent partner, this story apparently would be violating the policy and would be subject to the cruise line’s enforcement actions because prior written approval was not given to use these trademarks in a WordPress “blog.”
After all, the policy applies to “any profile, account, page or post on a social networking website…” CCL states.
The cruise line’s new travel agency policy is part of a larger effort to shore up its trademark and intellectual property rights, including as they relate to paid search and internet domains.
Other Carnival Corp North American brands are implementing  new travel agency policies, according to Travel Weekly, but it was unclear whether they would tackle social media issues in the same way that CCL has done.
CCL’s social media policy lumps together the company’s legitimate concerns about possible hijacking of its trademarks for unauthorized Twitter accounts, user names, profiles and social media advertising, but goes one step further by banning the use of any of these trademarks without prior authorization in tweets, blog posts or YouTube broadcasts.
For example, consider this Dec. 14 tweet from buycruises: “Continue your New Year’s Celebration (it doesn’t have to end: Santa said so) 7-nt Carnival Liberty Caribbean 1/2: $439 #cruise”
In theory, this tweet, if it were aired in 2010, would violate CCL’s new policy if the travel agent had not received prior written authorization from the cruise line.
A first violation requires the travel agency to disable or turn over control of all offending accounts or pages to Carnival.
And, a second violation of the social media policy gives Carnival the right to permanently revoke the agency’s ability to sell CCL’s sailings and enables the cruise line to keep any commissions the offending agency earned “during the period of an uncured violation,” according to the policy.
Of course, it’s up to the cruise line to determines if a violation has occurred.
Here’s CCL’s social media policy, which is slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2010:
Social Media Website Requirements.
“For avoidance of doubt, the requirements of the Policy apply to any profile, account, page, or post on a social networking website (including by example, but not limited to, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) blogging website (including by example, but not limited to BlogSpot.com, WordPress.com, etc.), Video Website (including by example, but not limited to YouTube, etc.), or any other website operated by a third party, directly or indirectly controlled or posted by Travel Agency (“Social Media Website”). In addition, Travel Agency may not use Carnival‟s Property, anything substantially similar to Carnival‟s Property, or Typos in any username, account name, profile name, page name, or similar for any Social Media Website or display or otherwise use any of Carnival‟s Property or Typos in any page, post, application, or advertising on any Social Media Website without prior written authorization from Carnival.” [The bolded text is my doing.]
In the opening paragraph of its new travel agency policy, CCL describes what it means by the intellectual property that falls within the scope of its policy:
“Carnival Cruise Lines, a division of Carnival Corporation (“Carnival”), has established this Travel Agency Policy (this “Policy”) for the advertisement, marketing, selling and booking of, and payment for, cruises offered by Carnival and the use of Carnival‟s intellectual property, including without limitation trademarks, copyright material, imagery and ship photography (collectively, “Carnival’s Property”), whether as used and/or registered by Carnival or whether a variance thereof, whether used on the Internet, in print material or otherwise.”
Fellow industry marketers would probably have no problem with the cruise line limiting the use of things like its “imagery and ship photography”.
But, in its haste to protect its trademarks, Carnival has cast such a wide net — by limiting the mention of trademarks throughout social media without prior written approval — that it effectively gives it the power to severely limit how CCL cruises are marketed on agents’ own websites or if they wish to express their opinions about all things — or anything, for that matter — related to Carnival.
The result is that travel agents would become the have-nots, as it relates to CCL, in social media.
After all, anyone else is relatively unfettered and has the right to tweet, opine or post a status update about a Carnival cruise or policy while using the trademarks “Club Carnival” or “Carnival Bed,” for instance.
However, under the line’s first social media policy, travel agents must toe the line, at CCL’s sole discretion, or risk losing their ability to book one of the world’s premier cruise brands.
For its part, CCL states the social media policy was not drafted with the aim of muzzling travel agents.
CCL spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz says:
“The intent is simply to try to ensure that our agency partners are working with us in how they represent the Carnival brand within social media. If an agency wants to tweet about a publicly available Carnival special, they are free to do so. If they want to upload Carnival assets such as video, photos and other content, they need our approval.
“The objective is to simply ensure that our trademarks are being used in a coordinated and on-brand manner.”
However, there is an extremely wide gap between CCL’s stated intent, and the language in the cruise line’s social media policy, which makes all use of Carnival trademarks by travel agency partners subject to the line’s prior restraint.
The stated policy does not merely pertain to “assets such as video, photos and other content,” but requires prior authorization for use of all CCL “property,” including trademarks, “in any page, post, application, or advertising on any Social Media Website…”
Asked to explain the contradiction, de la Cruz says she wasn’t familiar enough with the formulation of the policy to comment on the apparent disparity.
De la Cruz does say that the CCL policy enables the line to “cover our bases” to ensure that its trademarks and brand names are used in a manner consistent with what CCL is trying to communicate.
When informed of the cruise line’s new stance, Stuart MacDonald, founder and CEO of Tripharbor.com, says CCL’s social media policy “sounds like a legal attempt to have a reason to request a cease-and-desist or take action if something goes sideways”.
MacDonald adds: “The downside of them missing out on free mentions/promotion seems way more meaningful to me. But they likely need to demonstrate that they are trying to exercise some control over use of their marks if they ever want to have recourse down the line.”
If CCL’s new social media policy gets widely publicized, the cruise line indeed may get lots of free mentions, but they may be of the backlash variety.
NB: Pic from Kthypryn on Flickr
Related posts:
- Disney Cruise Line in new/old twist on social marketing
- Royal Caribbean sets social media adrift with Oasis of the Seas crossing
- Solutionz gets social-media centric with GuestCentric Systems
- American Airlines launches social-media website, airlines have Twitter issues
- Social media – why man is beating the machine
Lol! Talk about blowing hot & cold! They’re happy to bask in the glow of John Heald’s unleashed blog, but don’t want anyone else to embrace their customers through social media.
Tsk! That’s not the way it works guys! (Somebody tell them)
it seems a very short sighted. i’m unsure how likely they are to use these powers against an agent unless it involves a very obvious case but the backlash and fear of black-listing will mean most agents will not mention CCL on their sites / blogs etc. a way of generating more traffic direct to the CCL site?
Alastair: It looks like Carnival Cruise Lines got the message (i.e. in reference to your statement, “Somebody tell them.”)
They contacted me a few hours after the story was posted to say they will amend their planned social media policy to specify what kinds of things travel agents will need permission for and what kinds of things they won’t need permission for. See the update at the top of this story.
Let’s see what the cruise line comes up with. So, let’s reserve judgment for now.
CCL admits the wording of its intended social media policy was over-the-top. Hey, wording counts.
I spoke to someone who is very familiar with CCL policies/contracts and he said the line long has restricted use of its trademarks in travel agents’ advertising and promotional materials as a way to combat discounting and price dilution. From the looks of things, it is almost as if the line just imported its advertising restrictions from the marketing realm and tried to plop it down into the blogosphere and social media, which is a totally different animal.
At least CCL apparently will be addressing the problem quickly.
About John Heald’s blog, I just looked at it quickly, and at least I can say that I admire his candor. We need some more of that when travel industry officials get out on the blogs, whether it is an official corporate blog or a personal blog.
Anyway, let’s see how Carnival alters its 2010 social media policy. Hopefully, the line will come up with something that works.
Prana: See the update on the top of this story. Carnival says it has second thoughts about the policy and intends to amend it to specify what is permissible in social media without authorization and which kinds of things require it.
The cruise lines operate on a business model based upon “owning” the customer, and do everything they can to maintain that ownership for a lifetime by various repeat customer efforts.
That “ownership” business model is reflected in these thoughts on how they can control social media, but the most obvious expression of control is on how they hammerlock tour operators in all their ports of call into control structures that would be difficult to believe for many operating in other industries.
Of course this system is very well established and has some arguments in favour, such as the billions invested by the cruise lines in gaining the customer and then transporting them to and around ports.
The fundamental flaw though is the fluidity and freedom of information that the internet has unleashed.
The control based business model of effectively forcing passengers to only use “cruise line recommended” products/services and then the cruise lines keeping the lion’s share has no long term future in the age of information.
Of course they are very, very strong, so don’t bet on it changing TOO quickly
Tom: Interesting stuff about the land-based tour operators. I didn’t have any knowledge of how that actually works.
I wonder, however, about your statement that the cruise lines do everything to own the customer. Most of them are very strong about using the travel agency channel, and I think many travel agents would say they own the customer, or try to.
Anyway, let’s seen how CCL does in its revise of its social media rules.
Dennis… yes, the cruise lines do spend an enormous amount of money on Travel Agents, but they also spend a huge amount of money capturing customer information and marketing to them for future trips during and after their cruise. Makes good business sense for them of course, but whether it be price focussed mass cruise or price focussed mass All Inclusive vacations (look at the growth in the DR, for example)… one has to wonder what the long term future is for Travel Agents who focus on selling these.. the lifetime value of that customer acquisition for the Travel Agent is very much in question.
Tom: Good point about the information-capturing. But if traditional travel agents aren’t going to sell cruises and vacations, then what are they going to sell? Air is sort of off the table, as you know.
Agents obviously are selling lots of cruises and vacations now. With complex bookings like these, this precisely is where a good travel agent has a viable role in servicing a client. I know the cruise lines are doing more and more direct bookings. And, I agree that the tends are not in the favor of traditional travel agents.
Dennis.. it’s not that Travel Agents shouldn’t sell cruises and vacations, but they have to look at the “lifetime” value of their customers, as if all they sell is price on a simple transacation (eg off season cruise vacation or package tour to DR), then they build no value or customer loyalty.
Travel Agents need to sell experiences, not vacations, and to do that they need to get to know their customer and truly add value by targetting their offerings to the specific needs and wants of the customer. This is a tech website, and tech plays a big part on this, but this is old fashioned customer loyalty business building.
I’ve always spent a lot of time visiting travel agents in their offices around the US over the last couple of decades (gulp, I’m getting old), and the positive is that whilst the number of them still in business has been decimated, those that are still thriving (and there are many) are focussing on quality of their service.. a focus on quantity of price based business is a short term strategy doomed to longer term failure.
It’s sad because the negative press could have totally been avoided. As they revisit their original policy, they may consider referring to helpful databases such as http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php
Check out our firm’s policy at: http://www.gibraltar-llc.com/blog/?p=31
Follow me on Twitter @imjamesdavis
James: That’s a very interesting list of companies you have in the database. I’m sure there could be lessons learned. It’s too bad you don’t have any travel companies in there. Might be more relevant for Carnival, but good stuff just the same. Thanks for sharing.
Good piece. Sadly, too many organizations take this stance. Case in point. I had a campaign planned with our local Make-A-Wish Foundation office set to launch on Jan 1. I found out yesterday that we (a small company) were not allowed to use Facebook as part of the campaign for fear of the campaign “Going Viral.” When I challenged their logic stating, “Why wouldn’t you want something to go viral with your name all over it and in a positive light,” they switch gears.
When I boiled it down. They did not want to dilute their brand for a small donation (we were sponsoring a single wish) and tick off their larger donors (Macy’s, United Healthcare and Pillsbury) and steal their thunder. I guess our money wasn’t good enough when compared to Macy’s. This makes no sense to me, but I luckily their are other organizations interested getting kids wishes granted and “going viral.”
Stupid decisions are all around us folks.
Ryan: There is obviously still a lot of fear out there among companies about social media. It is a great watchdog against companies’ transgressions. There is no place to hide anymore. Nowhere to run. There are tons of hotels, for example, that still don’t have twitter accounts. They either are taking a wait-and-see attitude to see if the fad passes, or they think (wrongly) that silence is golden. Methinks not.