| The Big Ship | Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise? |
I've been amassing a collection of ocean liner ads over the years, and it has branched into other areas of transportation, communication, plus other products. It's interesting to see the changes in styles, the shift from illustrations to photos as graphic elements, the length of copy, the prose used. All in the name to sell us things we don't need, to create that want.
However, some products were necessities. (Or did they become necessities? Hmm ...) For almost 500 years, the only way to cross the oceans was by ship. The ship was a necessity. (Granted, it became a question of which company, which ship was faster, or had the better accommodations, the Queen Mary or the Normandie?) Then airplanes came into the picture, and finally jet travel by the late 1950s. That which was once a necessity now had been demoted to a choice.
The want to travel by ship had to be recreated. Shipping lines began to emphasize the amenities of ship travel, thus predating Carnival's concept of the ship being the destination. The main difference being, cruises today have the same departure and end point. You embark in Miami, tour the Caribbean, and disembark in Miami. Transatlantic travel was embark in New York, disembark in Southampton, or vice versa.
Cunard operatives coined the iconic phrase "Getting there is half the fun!" in the early 1950s. This morphed into "Vacation Islands" by the 1960s. The later ads showed people having fun, engaging in activities, or simply relaxing. While their smaller vessels were more suitable to cruising, the Queens were not, though they valiantly tried. Ironically, their 80,000+ GRT -- huge then -- would today be categorized as "mid-size."
"City at sea" and "France-Afloat." Sounds like a destination to me. I love the artwork in this ad. This is one of a series from the late 1950s. The glamour of the continent (or promise of) really comes across. The Italian Line used amazing illustrations in the mid-1960s, while many others were using photographs. (Mercedes-Benz had a campaign around the same time with some stunning black and white drawings.)
One of the arguments Carnival used in its battle with Royal Caribbean for Princess Cruises was that cruise lines compete directly with land-based resorts, and as a result, are not a separate industry. Carnival won the anti-trust wars and won Princess.
In 1958, Moore-McCormack introduced the Brasil and Argentina. This ad references "resort" and "country-club," two decidedly land-based notions. A list of amenities, such as a theater and restaurants add to the resort concept. MooreMac was not the first company to utilize the term "resort" and/or other synonyms in its advertising. American President Lines touted the President Cleveland and President Wilson as "your American hotel abroad" in the late 1940s. Delta Line called each of its trio a "Resort at Sea."
These companies had set route, or a milk-run, and cargo was the primary concern. American President traversed the Pacific: San Francisco to the Orient. Delta and MooreMac to South America. But each company had their flagships; the ones that carried a fair amount of passengers. But like the Atlantic, passengers for these routes soon took to the air.
This is a mere glossing over of the topic. (I admit, that' a generous assessment.) So much more can be done. I've hundreds, if not thousands of ads cataloged, and perhaps even more needing such attention.
During my last semester in college, in Media Criticism, I really wanted to use this subject for my final paper, but I wrote an earlier piece regarding the personification of ocean liners and couldn't reuse the topic, so 40 years of AT&T advertising was analyzed instead. I need to revisit this, and perhaps tie it in with another project.
It's good that I've saved my textbooks!
| The Big Ship | Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise? |
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