• by Tanya Gazdik , November 14, 2010

The buzz about Carnival Cruises continues, even though the damaged ship that caused hundreds to face several days of unsavory conditions is back in port.

For Carnival, it appears to be business as usual, with no mention of the incident on its Web site's main page. But the cruise line may have some work ahead to restore its image and entice passengers back on board.

"Carnival needs to create confidence among travel agents and passengers that it is taking steps to address the problem," says Henry H. Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst, airline and travel research, Forrester Research. "They also need to make people who are holding reservations feel confident about their decision, to avoid cancellations. That's probably going to be best managed through PR and targeted communications, like email and direct mail."

Peter M. Sandman, a risk communication and crisis communication consultant based in Princeton, N.J., says Carnival has done a pretty good job of managing communications. "Of course, the net effect is still negative, but not as negative as it might have been," Sandman tells Marketing Daily. "It's the nature of journalism that reporters are going to look for somebody to say it was awful and somebody else to say it wasn't that bad. Poor crisis communication is when the company is saying it wasn't that bad. Extraordinary crisis communication is when the company is the one saying it was awful."

Media coverage focused on the unpleasant circumstances passengers faced when trapped on the Carnival Splendor for three days without electricity, which resulted in toilets backing up, no air conditioning and very limited food service.

While a company statement released afterward was short and matter-of-fact about what would be done to compensate the affected passengers, Carnival Senior Cruise Director John Heald posted a more down-to-earth take on his blog, which is linked from the main Carnival Web site.

"I don't smell of roses ... as the laundry is not working and I only have two pairs of underpants," Heald quipped. "I smell like Paris on a hot summer's day. That's Paris the city, not Paris the person." Heald went on to assure readers that everyone on the ship was safe and while the conditions weren't great, passengers were being "magnificent and have risen to the obvious challenges and difficult conditions onboard."

Gerald Baron, executive vice president, communications for O'Brien's Response Management in Bellingham, Wash., says Heald's blog "is the best part of their communication so far. This is the kind of thing that should be official from the company. It is warm, human and honest."

The absence of any mention of the incident on Carnival's main Web site is a mistake, Baron says. "It really communicates the wrong message," he says. "I don't think you want to have it completely dominant or an incident-specific site totally replace it, but it has to not look like you are minimizing the event. An incident-specific Web site with much more detail about what is going on is critical, and a link on the main site to that incident site should be much stronger and more visible."

While going silent isn't the best strategy, the company needs time to evaluate its next moves, Forrester's Harteveldt tells Marketing Daily. "At this time, I don't believe that Carnival should do a massive consumer campaign, especially with an investigation taking place," he says. "The line should certainly do some research to see if this is affecting consumers' attitudes about the brand and taking a cruise. After the investigation is concluded, and based on its findings as well as any research insight and its booking data, Carnival can evaluate whether it needs to do any marketing to address this."