Index Weighs Consumer Attachment to Brands

Charlie's Angels

USA Today: What do American Airlines and the new fall television show Charlie's Angels have in common? Apparently, a large number of consumers who love them both.

So say the findings of a 2011 television program study by NewMediaMetrics, a strategic marketing and analytics company, which has developed an index that measures the level of emotional attachment consumers have to different brands — and how that mirrors their connections to media, ranging from magazines to mobile phones.

A look at airlines and the new fall TV lineup reveals that 33.8% of those who felt a strong attachment to American Airlines had similarly strong feelings for ABC's updated take on the 1970s viewers' favorite with Farrah Fawcett. Among Delta's biggest fans, 35.2% felt equally strong about the CBS drama Unforgettable. And 35.5% of those who most loved JetBlue were also strongly drawn to the Fox series New Girl.

The information can help companies figure out the best media in which to place their ads, either to boost sales to customers who already feel a strong bond, or to woo those whose feelings aren't as intense, says Gary Reisman, NewMediaMetrics' co-founder.

"If you're attached, you are loyal," Reisman says. The company's index, using a scale of 0 to 10, has measured emotional connection to hundreds of brands in the past six years.

"If we target … the people attached to the brand and attached to the (TV) program, those individuals are three times as likely to consider buying and using the brand."

Similarly, those consumers who are slightly less attached to a carrier might be swayed if the airline's ads target shows they are more passionate about.

Stacey Frantz, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, says having an emotional link to passengers is key to customer loyalty. "We are always interested in where our customers are connecting emotionally," Frantz says. "In fact, it's one of the key barometers by which we measure the success of our advertising concepts."

While the airline hasn't used NewMediaMetrics' research, it has conducted its own.

"We leverage a significant amount of customer research to make decisions like this about where our customers are best connecting emotionally as it relates to our brand," Frantz says.

The TV study also looked at other travel companies. The new ABC show Revenge, for instance, was popular with many who felt most attached to online travel sites Expedia, Travelocity and Hotels.com. Many who felt a strong connection to Hilton hotels had similar feelings for the new show Person of Interest on CBS.

People who like this airline also like that show

Consumers with the strongest emotional attachment to these airlines, cruise lines and hotels had a similarly strong one to these new TV shows, according to a new NewMediaMetrics survey to measure the level of attachment to different brands.

Airlines:

American Airlines
Charlie's Angels (ABC)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery Channel)

Delta
Unforgettable (CBS)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery)

JetBlue
New Girl (Fox)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery)

Southwest
Person of Interest (CBS)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery)

United
The X Factor (Fox)
Impractical Jokers (TruTV)

Cruise lines:

Carnival Cruise Lines
Prime Suspect (NBC)
Semi Pro (TruTV)

Disney Cruise Lines
Unforgettable (CBS)
Rocco's Dinner Party (Bravo)

Norwegian Cruise Lines
Pan Am (ABC)
Impractical Jokers (TruTV)

Hotels:

Embassy Suites
New Girl (Fox)
Rocco's Dinner Party (Bravo)

Hyatt
Revenge (ABC)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery)

Marriott
New Girl (Fox)
Curiosity: The Questions of Life (Discovery)

Sheraton
New Girl (Fox)
Falling Skies (TNT)

Norwegian Cruise Ship Fire Kills Two

The Telegraph: The Nordlys cruise ship limps back to port after a fire onboard killed two and injured at least four more.

The ship, operating on a popular tourist route from Bergen to the northern regions above the Polar circle, was close to the port of Aalesund in western Norway when a fire started in the engine room, state broadcaster NRK reported.

"There are two people confirmed deceased and the rescue team are searching the boat for more," said a spokesman for the Norwegian police.

The British Consul said there were six British passengers on board.

According to the website of operator Hurtigruten the Nordlys, built in 1994, can carry 691 passengers.

Video:

China Transforms Aircraft Carrier into Luxury Hotel

Kiev Presidential Suite

Economic Times: China has transformed a former Soviet heavy aircraft-carrying warship, Kiev, into its first aircraft carrier luxury hotel.

According to the South China Morning Post, the retired warship was sold to a Chinese company in 1996, and has been part of a military theme park in China's Tianjin municipality since 2004.

It has now undergone a 9.6 million pound refit, and its owners believe that China's burgeoning naval power will drum up customer interest and appeal to curious visitors.

"Previously, China didn't have aircraft carriers. People find them mysterious and are curious about them," Binhai Aircraft Park marketing manager Liu Chang said.

"Even though China's first aircraft carrier has now gone on sea trials, it will be quite hard for the public to ever visit it. I guess people can come here to fulfill their curiosity," he added.

There are five lavish presidential suites in Kiev, but prices to stay in the converted aircraft carrier are yet to be set.

However, the lavish interior suggests that the hotel will appeal to the more well-off clientele.

Lawyer Says Client Only Guilty of Felony Stupidity

Tampa Bay Online: What Rick Ehlert did aboard a cruise ship in November was stupid, his attorney says. Ehlert admits he got drunk aboard the MS Ryndam, broke into a control room and deployed the ship's anchor early in the morning, Daniel L. Castillo said. "I guess he thought it was a big joke."

Castillo added, "He's got a lot of money. It was a silly thing to do. It's silly. He's not denying he did it."

But is Ehlert guilty of a federal crime? Castillo says no. "He's guilty of felony stupidity — that he is," Castillo said. "But I don't think it should be a federal crime."

The attorney filed a motion Thursday to dismiss a three-count indictment against Ehlert, whom Castillo described as a wealthy Californian who owns an RV business. "An alcohol-induced reckless act does not necessarily equate to a violation of federal criminal statutes," Castillo wrote.

The lawyer says the charges — part of federal anti-terrorism legislation — carry a maximum possible prison term of 20 years, although prosecutors have told him they expect sentencing guidelines to call for probation. Castillo said he tried, without success, to have Ehlert admitted to a pretrial diversion program.

The Holland America ship, which was sailing from Costa Maya, Mexico, to Tampa, wasn't damaged, but it could have been, according to an arrest affidavit. Authorities said releasing an anchor on a moving cruise ship could damage the rudder and propeller, affecting maneuverability. It could puncture the ship, causing it to flood or sink.

Shortly after the anchor was released at 5:25 a.m., someone deployed a life buoy from Deck 11, the affidavit states.

About 7:30 a.m., the ship's captain made an announcement asking passengers and crew to come forward with information about the buoy, the affidavit states. When no one stepped forward, the ship's emergency alarm was sounded and all passengers and crew were mustered on deck.

After about 40 minutes, with everyone accounted for, passengers were allowed to leave the deck.

"Everybody was mad at him," Castillo said, but there was no damage to the ship and no one was hurt. "Where's the crime?"

Over 100 Fatalities in Volga River Accident

The Telegraph: Up to fifty young children are feared to be among the more than one hundred passengers who lost their lives in a tragic river boat accident on Russia’s River Volga on Sunday.

Fifteen minutes before the ageing Soviet-era vessel ‘Bulgaria’ capsized two miles from the nearest river bank, up to fifty children were shepherded into a room on the double-decker pleasure craft for a children’s party. Few of them, if any, are thought to have made it out alive, and one of the adult entertainers reportedly told them to stay where they were until the situation became clearer.

“About fifty people were trapped in the ship’s music room and most of them were children,” one of the rescuers told online news portal lifenews.ru.”Many of the ship’s doors also turned out to be locked blocking people’s escape, and one distraught woman told state TV that she lost her grip on her daughter as they tried to flee the sinking boat.

“Practically no children made it out,” the woman sobbed. “There were very many children on the boat, very many.” Relatives of the passengers gathered close to where the rescue operation was being coordinated to seek information about their missing loved ones on Sunday night. One man who said his wife and daughters were on board the doomed vessel implored rescuers to let him look at the few dead bodies recovered by divers so far. “Please let me look. Maybe my daughter is among the bodies,” he pleaded.

The ramshackle Soviet-era pleasure craft was on its way back to the city of Kazan some 500 miles east of Moscow with almost 200 people on board on Sunday afternoon as its two-day river trip drew to an end. But the trip had been marred by constant rain and strong winds and one of the vessel’s two engines had broken down, while eye witnesses said it had left port on Saturday listing heavily to the right.

The ship’s radio operator told the ITAR-Tass news agency that passengers and crew had begged the captain to halt the cruise due to the ship’s parlous state but that he had refused. “Somebody gave him the order to press on,” said the radio operator. “The captain did not come out and talk to people but decided to set off once again despite everything.”

The ship, built in 1955 in then Czechoslovakia, was also dangerously overloaded. Its maximum capacity was 120 people but it was said to be carrying closer to 200 people, some of whom did not even have tickets. As weather conditions worsened, survivors said they felt increasingly vulnerable. “He (the captain) should not have left port,” a survivor called Anna told the lifenews.ru online portal. “The weather was bad. It was stormy weather. What kind of cruise could there be for God’s sake!”

As the water got choppier and choppier and the wind rose, survivors said the boat got into trouble, that a giant wave swept dozens of people off the deck, and that it tried to perform a sharp maneuver against the river’s strong current. With one of its engines out, it did not have enough power however and flipped over sinking within a matter of minutes.

“It sank in two or three minutes,” said Liliya Khaziyeva, a spokeswoman for the Rescue Service. “We found dead people wearing safety jackets, people who were simply unable to leave the ship.” Some survivors said they had managed to clamber aboard a couple of life rafts, while a few others managed to swim to the bank. Wrapped in blankets to ward off the cold, some of the survivors said other boats had passed the drowning people but had not stopped to help.

“Two boats went by without stopping, even though we waved and waved,” Nikolai Chernov, a survivor, told state TV. Another woman claimed that tourists aboard one of the craft had filmed survivors in the water on their mobile phones as they sped past. Luckily another ship, the ‘Arabella,’ did eventually stop and plucked around eighty survivors out of the water.

Other reports said that the stricken ship had only two instead of the four lifeboats it was supposed to carry, and that a recent facelift had failed to address serious safety issues. Investigators said they had opened a criminal investigation into the tragedy that would look carefully at whether the ship’s captain and owners were guilty of criminal negligence and incompetence.

As divers laboured to bring up the dozens of dead bodies trapped in the submerged ship on Monday placing the fully clothed lifeless corpses on the deck of a nearby boat, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry said hopes of finding any more survivors was dwindling by the hour.

“According to the divers, the chances of finding anyone alive are minimal,” she said.

Queen Mary 2 Flunks CDC Inspection

MSNBC: A human hair in an ice machine, "extremely dirty" water in a pool, chemicals stored near napkins and paper cups and even a few errant cockroaches — these are just a few of the reasons that led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slap a rare failing grade on Cunard's Queen Mary 2 after its latest inspection.

The ship scored a lowly 84 out of 100 during a Vessel Sanitation Program inspection on June 10, with 86 considered a satisfactory grade. Just last year, in July 2010, the ship sailed through the inspection with a score of 98. The CDC conducts surprise cleanliness exams twice a year.

In the detailed report, inspectors cited dozens of violations, including potable water tanks that were improperly maintained, wine and food products that were improperly stored directly on an open deck, and food residue on many surfaces that should have been wiped clean (e.g., a blender lid, steel shelving and even several deck surfaces). The word "filthy" is used in the report five times.

The condition of ice machines came under attack in several instances, included the aforementioned hair (found on an inside white lid) and one machine that had a "heavy amount of soil in the rear inside compartment." As for the ship's unwanted guests, the CDC reported that "four live fruit flies and four adult cockroaches" were found in a storage locker.

In a statement provided to Cruise Critic by Cunard, the line contends that the "poor assessment on 10 June resulted largely from one small area of the ship's overall operation. All the issues raised in the report were immediately addressed and have now been corrected." In response to the report's citations of numerous staff lapses, Cunard says, "Ship and shore management have now redefined certain roles and responsibilities to clarify accountability and the company's already rigorous training schedule has been stepped up."

Failing grades for ships, particular the larger mega-vessels trawling the seas, are exceedingly rare. In May, Norwegian Epic came close, scoring a lowly 89, while Carnival Glory squeaked by with an 87 after a January inspection. But there have been no failing scores since Albatross, a private vessel, earned a 69 in February 2010.

Since January 1, 16 ships have nabbed perfect scores, including Oasis of the Seas, Azamara Journey, Disney Dream, Norwegian Dawn, Norwegian Jewel, Freedom of the Seas, HAL's Amsterdam, Celebrity Century — and even Carnival Splendor, which made big news last fall when an engine fire left it adrift off the coast of Mexico for four days.

The Lego Love Boat

USA Today: It isn't often you read about LEGO bricks at the Cruise Log. But how often does the Cruise World see something like this?

Created by 36-year-old Australian Ryan McNaught, one of only 12 certified LEGO builders in the world, the "LEGO Love Boat," as it's being called, will be on display this month in Chicago at Brickworld, the world's largest LEGO convention.

Made up of more than 250,000 LEGO bricks, the ship is McNaught's largest creation ever and designed to evoke the Princess Cruises ship that was the setting for the Love Boat television show of the 1980s.

The LEGO ship includes over 450 miniature LEGO people "enjoying a fabulous cruise and the best holiday they have ever had," McNaught writes on his website, thebrickman.com. The vessel measures over ten feet long by nearly five feet high and includes powered functions such as a moving anchor, bow thruster and propeller. The lifeboat also can be raised and lowered.

"The ship of course has all the Love Boat crew on-board as well as a whole series of '80s washed-up TV stars," quips McNaught, who builds such models in his off hours. By day he's an information technology worker in Melbourne, Australia.

McNaught tells the Cruise Log the public can come see the ship at Brickworld in Chicago on June 18 and 19.

New Disney Cruise Ship Details Revealed

Disney Fantasy

Cruise Critic: Disney Cruise Line has unveiled its design plans for the 4,000-passenger Disney Fantasy, which is scheduled for launch next spring.

While retaining many of the design elements of its sibling Disney Dream (including the AquaDuck, the semi-thrilling water coaster onboard), there are a few new elements:

"Animation Magic": The dinner show takes place in the Animator's Palate restaurant and features a salute to animation, starring Mickey Mouse himself. Expect a wide range of Disney icons to appear, via animation, and an homage to "Be Our Guest" from "Beauty and the Beast."

Europa: This adults-only entertainment district will include bars and lounges and give off a European vibe. Venues include O'Gill's Pub, an Irish bar, and Skyline, which will provide bird's-eye views of European capitals.

"Disney's Aladdin -- A Musical Spectacular": Rub the lamp, and poof -- new stage entertainment appears. This Broadway-style show will occupy the 1,340-seat Walt Disney Theatre.

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique: The theme park stalwart makes the leap to the high seas. Kids can be transformed into princesses and pirates, courtesy of a staff keen on giving wee ones the royal treatment.

Luxury Cruise Turns Into 3 Day Nightmare

Cruise Ship MSC Opera

Daily Mail: It was meant to be a luxurious and relaxing break, with passengers enjoying stop-offs in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Helsinki, St Petersburg and Copenhagen.

But the ten-day cruise quickly turned into a nightmare for the 1,700 people on board – including 400 Britons – when their luxury liner broke down in the Baltic Sea.

Holidaymakers aboard the stricken MSC Opera staged a mutiny after enduring blackouts, food shortages and no running water or working toilets for almost three days.  The passengers were yesterday towed to land in Sweden and placed on flights to take them home.

The cruise liner had set sail from Southampton on Saturday, May 7. But it ran into trouble in the Baltic Sea off Sweden on Saturday when the ship’s electricity – and attempts to restart the engines – failed. Retired Isle of Wight hotelier Mary Birch, 65, said her fellow passengers directed their fury at the captain and were placated with free alcohol by anxious staff.

Mrs Birch said: ‘We stopped in the middle of the Baltic, nobody knew why, for about three hours. Then it came across the tannoy that the boat was experiencing some difficulties and then it stopped again for 12 hours, and then finally they got some tugs out to pull us in.

‘The toilets were unusable and then they got them working and then they didn’t work again. There was no water. Food-wise, we’ve just been on rolls.’

Mrs Birch, who was speaking to Isle of Wight Radio, added: ‘The captain we haven’t seen, there was a bit of a mutiny [on Sunday night], everybody shouting for the captain but he never appeared and then they decided to give us all free drink.

Her son Mark Birch, senior coxswain at the Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat, who was not on board the ship, said passengers chanted: ‘We want the captain, we want the captain.’ He added: ‘He wouldn’t come down but they opened the bar to calm everyone down.’

Mr Birch said his mother had saved up for the cruise as she had always longed to visit St Petersburg. ‘They’ve been offered a free cruise but she’s a bit frightened of the sea and I imagine it will put her off for life.’

Jo Orchard from Exmouth, Devon, received a panicked telephone call from her parents Dennis and Linda Huntley, who took the trip to celebrate Mr Huntley turning 65. Mrs Orchard said: ‘For 24 hours, they were told nothing. They had no water, no electricity, no food, no sanitation. All they had to eat all day was a dry biscuit.

‘It was scary for them. They were just floating aimlessly in the dark.’ Their ordeal came to an end when tugs were sent out on Sunday to pull the vessel to shore.
It reached land yesterday and passengers were bussed to Stockholm and flown to Bournemouth last night.

An MSC Cruises spokesman said all passengers would receive a credit voucher for another ten-day cruise. The company has cancelled the ship’s next excursion, due to sail out of Southampton today, which will affect around 500 passengers.

9 Immigrants Smuggled Aboard Queen Mary 2

New York Daily News: A Malaysian man smuggled illegal Chinese immigrants into Brooklyn in style - aboard the ultraposh Queen Mary 2 cruise ship, federal authorities say.

Five women and four men were taken into custody last month after the QM2 - touted as the most luxurious ocean liner ever built - arrived at the New York Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.

The accused smuggler, Fatt Kwee Wong, told agents he was paid $3,000 for each of the nine passengers by an unidentified person in China. The illegal immigrants also forked over $500 each when they boarded the ship in Dubai, according to court papers.

A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it is believed to be the first case of its kind in the New York area. The illegal immigrants were not stowaways - their names appeared on the boat's manifest - and they had access to the ship's spectacular amenities. The QM2 boasts a Canyon Ranch spa, Royal Court Theater, planetarium, gourmet restaurants and the "largest ballroom at sea," according to the Cunard website.

Wong carried a Japanese passport and aroused suspicion at the immigration checkpoint when he was stumped when asked the names of his nine companions. A fingerprint check showed Wong, 49, was wanted for smuggling aliens into Bermuda, court records show.Wong, who speaks Mandarin and claims he works as a welder in Malaysia, was ordered held without bail. His lawyer declined comment.