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Client: Royal Caribbean
Creative Agency: Big Spaceship, Arnold Worldwide

Royal Caribbean, Big Spaceship and Arnold Worldwide joined forces to make a travel and tourism site unlike anything else on the net. With the help of their "vacation personality expert" Sammy the Suitcase (joining the likes of The Roaming Gnome and William Shatner, the Priceline negotiator), you can pick your favorite activities and get guidance on what cruise package would best suit you.

Once you visit the site, you immediately understand why it won the Best Motion Graphics award at the 2007 SXSW Interactive Festival. Sammy gobbles up countless items -- surfboards, tuxedos, spicy foods…mountains -- and based on three categories of relaxation, adventure and culture, chooses which vacation is best for you. You can slide from the bedroom to the kitchen to find things that suit your vacation style, and at the end of it all, Sammy serenades you with the vacation you chose. The graphics and transitions are flawless and get you into the spirit of planning your dream cruise.

Once a vacation is chosen for you, the companies supply all the tools to help you on your way. You can also watch funny videos of Sammy on vacation, you can design a date for Sammy, participate in his sing-along songs, or listen to what he has on his voicemail.

  (click to view)The smooth design interface and user engagement contributes to the success of this campaign. There are so many ways for the user to get involved, all of them enforcing the call-to-action and pointing you toward your dream cruise.
-- Krisserin Canary, associate editor, iMedia Communications

The internet and the travel industry are one of online's super couples. They complement each other, respect each other, complete each other…and this campaign does a fantastic job of marrying the fun of getting away with all the requisite information-seeking that travelers have to do before setting sail. For the traveler who doesn't know exactly where they want to go, the ability to shove a mountain, a tuxedo, rollerblades and a margarita into a smooth-talking suitcase that tells them through the magic of song that they want to go to Europe, is a great benefit.

This whole experience is seamless. The animation, quirky humor and airy music playing in the background all help the user take a mini-vacation from their tasks at hand. The add-on features are grouped intelligently to feed the needs of those with some time on their hands ("Learn More About…," "Plan My Vacation…") and those users with even a little more time on their hands ("Watch Sammy videos," "Sing-a-long with Sammy," "Create the perfect she-case for Sammy,") et cetera.

(click to view)Sooner or later, I'll have some time to get away, and when I do, I'm turning to Sammy the Suitcase to pack my days full of fun.
-- Bradley Werner, director of marketing, The Fifth Network

Taking a cruise should be fun. When I look at the site launched by Royal Caribbean, I'm pleased to see they managed to replicate the same atmosphere online that you would expect on a cruise. They've created an experience that is fun, engaging, rich and surprising enough to get you into the mood of booking a vacation as soon as possible.

It's all about advertainment, and once again Big Spaceship demonstrates they are great at this type of project. The site has a lot of features to discover and definitely has the capability to generate repeat visits and a good amount of buzz both among potential first-time cruisers and loyal clients of Royal Caribbean.

If you look at the single elements of the site, maybe it's tough to find something creatively unique and innovative, but in this case, I believe it's important to look at the entire picture. The whole experience for the user is surely of high quality and, in the end, this is what really matters.
-- Martina Zavagno, editor-in-chief, Adverblog