A massive logistical operation

— Posted Tuesday 27th April 2010 by Sarah Rathbone under Stuff worth knowing

Substance, not style

The power of acting quickly delivered what was billed even by the media as a 'publicity coup' for our client Celebrity Cruises last week. It didn't set out to be a PR driven story, but when every national print and broadcast newsdesk has called you within a few moments of making an announcement then you realise you need to work even faster than the news machine around you, and your client.

Celebrity Cruises had a new ship arriving in the UK last week all spick and span ready for the launch celebrations. But as the ship made its way to Southampton on calm seas, the very calm skies above were causing a major issue for the travel industry.

The still sunshine meant that ash clouds from a volcano in Iceland were not dispersing and therefore airspace in first the UK, and then Northern Europe, was closed. Grounded flights left holiday makers stranded around the world in their hundreds of thousands, and the knock-on financial implications cost the travel industry billions each day.

Whilst the new ship was exciting, the party celebrations planned didn't quite seem so fitting. Celebrity Cruises acted quickly to cancel one of its launch celebration cruises, and instead to send the ship to Northern Spain to collect stranded holidaymakers, and all in time to be back in Southampton for the scheduled naming ceremony on Saturday 24 April.

As Celebrity Cruises president and CEO Dan Hanrahan, and chairman, Richard Fain explained to the media during a later press conference to celebrate the naming of the ship, it was a quick decision. Richard put it perfectly during the planning conference calls with the ship, 'this feels like the right thing to do'. But the logistics involved would normally take several weeks, and this time the turnaround would be under 48 hours.

The Siren team acted quickly too. The announcement that the ship would swap the first part of its inaugural celebrations for a repatriation cruise to Bilbao, Spain was made as soon as Celebrity Cruises' tour operator partners confirmed they could get holidaymakers to Bilbao. Celebrity Cruises could provide the ship, and means to get home, but relied upon the ground logistics and phenomenal efforts of TUI, Thomas Cook and The Co-op Travel Group to get the people to the ship.

Late on Monday evening, before the ship's scheduled arrival to Southampton the next morning, a quick tip off to the Press Association ensured every night editor was quickly aware of the development. Phones rang through the night. We particularly loved ITN for apologising for waking us up at 5.30am on the Tuesday, we appreciated it but unfortunately they weren't the earliest caller.

By 9am the new Celebrity Eclipse arrived in Southampton. By 6pm Dan Hanrahan, Richard Fain and the UK associate vice president Jo Rzymowska had been interviewed by every news broadcaster in the UK, and several American ones.

The world's media pushed to try and be onboard the sailing to Bilbao. We were anxious to ensure that nothing delayed the turn around in Bilbao and that any media attention absolutely did not get in the way of the tired stranded holidaymakers we knew would be embarking in Spain. We also only had a skeleton team of two PRs from Siren onboard the ship. One who made it to the ship five minutes before it sailed, and one who had been handling things on the ground in Southampton - expected to be just a few hours in the morning - with no change of clothes.

So we might not have looked our best, but this news management was a clear case of substance over style.

As the ship arrived in Bilbao we saw its arrival live on BBC News playing throughout the ship. Our rapidly assigned team of PR helpers from the Celebrity Cruises UK sales and marketing teams, and Latin America marketing function, looked nervously at a line of news satellite trucks running parallel to the line of coaches.

The team back in the Siren office coordinated media enquiries and requests to board the ship alongside the in-house Celebrity Cruises team in the UK. Those of us on the ship briefed the president and chairman on what we were expecting, and we disembarked the ship with all plans rolling into action.

The best lesson we learnt was to make friends with the head of security of everywhere we went. These people make anything happen. They are used to unknown events unfolding very quickly that have to be managed and dealt with and so calmly assist. Mike - head of security for Celebrity Cruises - we love you. Although we remain very scared of you!

Media who had sailed with us from Southampton to Bilbao were assigned a helper to ensure they got what they needed quickly on the ground, they were all individually briefed on the parameters we were working around, and that at no time could any filming or interviews delay anyone getting off a coach or onto the ship. This was about efficient logistics and getting people home, not PR.

Media who lined up Bilbao also had the same brief, and were able to embark the ship and see guests getting onboard. Travellers who had been on 10 hour coach journeys were so thrilled to be on the way home, and pleased to talk to familiar names like GMTV that they sang songs, cried and cheered in excitement to be getting on a UK-bound ship.

Look out for our next blog for the return journey to Southampton, and arrival back to the UK.