Teri West
A woman climbs into a hammock, where she is embraced by a man. A text overlay reads: "the laws of the land do not apply."
This isn't a perfume ad or a promo for a steamy HBO show. It's a 1990s television ad for Norwegian Cruise Line. The line's sexy, black-and-white "It's Different Out Here" campaign made a splash nearly 30 years ago by depicting the cruise experience in an entirely new way. And this week, NCL resurrected the "It's Different Out Here" tagline as it rolled out a new visual brand identity and a series of video ads starring sailors from the 1770s.
The new ads couldn't be more different from those of the '90s. But the association with the same tagline indicates that NCL isn't afraid to remind people of the risk it took more than 30 years ago to stand out.
The original campaign was born through a partnership with San Francisco-based ad agency Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein.
In a Chicago Tribune article from 1994, agency co-chairman Jeff Goodby said of NCL: "We wanted to make them look different from all of the other cruise spots out there." He added, "I think it gives them an elegance, an exotic feeling that makes going on a trip look like really going away."
When the first TV ads dropped in 1993, the New York Times called the campaign one "that forgoes the cruise industry's traditional approach of sun and fun for a more sultry, elegant tone."
You can still watch the ad spots on YouTube. In one, a voiceover asks, "What do you need to fall in love again?" before a steamy scene of a couple in an outdoor shower. Another outlines "A new constitution for the world," in which Article 3 is "winter will be exiled."
By 1994, NCL was running the ads during the Super Bowl.
Richard Turen, owner of the vacation-planning firm Churchill & Turen and a Travel Weekly columnist, remembers how differently the campaign communicated the cruise experience.
NCL, he said, "came up with the idea that there was no understanding in advertising that a cruise allows you the freedom to do what you want when you want to do it," he said. "At the time, that ad was going against the stereotypical imagery of what every other ad was showing."
Then came the awards. The campaign won for best magazine advertising in 1994 at the Kelly Awards held by the Magazine Publishers of America. Later, the television ads would be named among the top ten of the decade by The One Club, which celebrates creative advertising.
All the while, they weren't without controversy.
Then-Carnival Cruise Line president Bob Dickinson indicated that he thought they painted the cruise experience as overly exclusive. They ''send messages that 'I need a $50,000 wardrobe' or that 'I need my breasts augmented or my teeth capped' to go on this cruise line or that," he said, per the New York Times.
As the millennium headed toward a close, so did "It's Different Out Here" and NCL's partnership with the ad agency behind it.
Nina Cohen joined NCL in 1997 as director of marketing and "promised sweeping marketing changes," the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. NCL asked Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein to shift its focus to the line's services and destinations, the New York Times reported, and four months later they parted ways. According to the Sentinel report, Cohen said the campaign's ads "were truly not relevant to what this product is. So, we made a tough decision."
The ads may have been good for business at first. In May 1995, a Chicago Tribune report about the campaign said bookings were up 20% over 12 months.
But as it came to a close, the Sentinel said it "wasn't filling cabins."
The successor to "It's Different Out Here" cut out the black-and-white and intimacy and replaced it with shots of entertainment and dining on the ships.
Cohen felt that was ultimately in the best interest of travel advisors -- which Travel Weekly reported when the new campaign, "The Norwegian Way," launched in 1999. "It offers travel agents something very tangible to sell," she said.
The new 'Different' campaign
Now, as the line brings back "It's Different Out Here," it says the new positioning "celebrates the disruptor mentality that has always set NCL apart," the company said. An example, it said, is Freestyle Cruising, which helped usher in a more relaxed and flexible cruise experience, particularly in dining and dress.
It's subtle. So far, the ads highlight flexibility, like being able to wear flip flops to dinner, but they don't offer a history lesson about how more casual dress codes came to be.
The new branding is also meant to communicate that "the freedom to be fully present is the ultimate goal of any vacation, replacing the industry's obsession with scaling up and attraction overload," according to NCL.
It will be interesting to see if the meaning of "It's Different Out Here" continues to evolve more than 30 years after it originated.