Just Add Water: Creating an Instant Community
How Cruise Lines Perfected the Formation of Community in 6 Hours Flat & What Digital Communities Can Learn From It
Have you ever taken a cruise with one of the major cruise lines? Once you get over the immense feeling of being herded like sheep through check-in and security screenings, a vacation mode slowly kicks in. You feel like you’re a part of something bigger. You and thousands of new acquaintances are about to set sail, sunburn, imbibe and feast together for days on end.
You’re lost when you arrive on a new ship. Long hallways of staterooms, floor after floor of stairways and an endless muster drill are some of your first impressions, and it’s the job of the cruise staff to shake off that feeling and get you to relax in the moment.
A bartender learns your name. A Maître d' takes you to your table and pulls out your chair. You head to the after-dinner show in the theater, or check out the DJ and sail away party on the pool deck.
And that’s when it happens:
Before you know it you’re participating in call and response and cheering on a bartender making shots. You (like my brother) are singing Sweet Caroline at the top of your drunken lungs in the casino. You’ve joined a pool deck conga line, or (God help you) a bellyflop contest. You’re a part of the inside jokes created by the Cruise Director and his team, laughing about ports, home countries or the weather. They’re warming you up to the collective experience (and making it easier to part with your money.) Their secret recipe of friendliness and charisma is replicated sailing after sailing.
So what are cruises doing right?
First off: humor. Laughter relaxes people, and laughing together builds comradery. While the cruise staff has heard the same joke 10,000 times, each sailing it reaches new audiences. Furthermore, cruises bring on stand up comics and host playful mini-games that break the ice and provide opportunities for participation. Even introverts can join in as spectators, and, of course, alcohol goes a long way to making everything funnier.
Second: The collective experience. It’s okay to feel like a small fish in a big pond when you’re in a community. It’s about being in on the joke, speaking the lingo or mastering the layout of the ship enough to give someone else directions. It’s the collective gasp of surprise during a magic show when no one can believe their eyes.
Bringing together the two above topics is an icon of cruise ship entertainment: their take on the Newlywed Game, where couples have to answer semi-humiliating questions about each other. It becomes a running gag over the course of the week, playing on repeat on one of 10 channels of TV you get in your cabin. It’s the perfect balance of fleeting experience (I’ll never see these people again) and having a great laugh. While you will NEVER see me on stage for this one, I appreciate it’s position as a pillar to the cruise experience, and what it does for creating small talk over the breakfast buffet the next morning.
Third: Communication. Each evening you receive a printed guide (or access to a mobile app) with the next day’s events and happenings. The first barrier to participation is even knowing what’s going on. Judiciously the overhead speaker is used for major updates, but standardly events begin with a host running through some housekeeping: tomorrow morning we’ll dock at 9am, if you have a question about excursions- please see this desk, tomorrow night is the white party at dinner, etc. The repetition of reminders is actually comforting: if you’re in vacation-mode and not paying attention to your Outlook Calendar and Teams messages this is your lifeline to a semblance of structure and familiarity.
Fourth: Competition. It’s a way to build your personal identity within a group, or feel valued for a skill or talent. Whether it’s trivia or sudoku, a Hairy Chest Contest (click at your own risk) or karaoke, cruises give you a chance to shine at what you do best. It gives you a focused purpose for a little while, and a fast way to build fast friendships with like-minded individuals.
Fifth: Learning Together. If you step on board but don’t know the difference between forward and aft, that won’t last long. Cruises are filled with opportunities to be a student. Want to learn how to fold towels into animal shapes? Explore the galley and find out how many eggs are used each day? Finally ready to try out pilates or sculpting in the gym? Cruises create plenty of opportunities for personal development and learning, which comes with a sense of curiosity, humility and finally, accomplishment. They create a chance to build you up.
These tricks, layered in a rich daily agenda, create the flavor for the vacation. While eyeing the bottom line, cruise operators know these are the things that get you out of your stateroom and passing through the shops and bars. These are the things that etch in your memory when you’re considering becoming #loyaltoroyal or a #funshipfanatic, committing to lifetime value as a customer.
Saying Goodbye
And before you know it: vacation is over. You’re left with memories, a hangover and perhaps a sunburn as you return to real life. Is that the end of your relationship with the cruise and passengers you shared this experience with? Is it over as quickly as it began?
For the cruise line: They worked so hard to create this shared experience and vibe, and a new audience arrives to take over the staterooms. The crew starts again, repeating the same best practices each time. They tell the warm-up jokes again: “Who’s planning on checking out the casino this week?! Might as well stand in front of the change machine…at least there you will always break even!”
Poised for Disruption
So why do we let this magic bubble for the consumers burst?
Well: Did you really make lasting friendships with people? Did you exchange Instagram handles or exchange numbers with anyone? Maybe one or two people stand out enough to be a social media connection, but did you forget that you have so much in common? Surely there’s better ways to stay connected.
Facebook Groups stand as one disruptor to this cycle, both before and after a trip: If you search for a ship name and sailing date, odds are you can find a group of people who will be embarking on this upcoming journey with you. Planning excursions, sharing packing tips, and asking newbie questions frequent the feed of groups like these. After the trip you’ll find standard photo dumps, reviews and the dreaded “I got the flu, did you?” threads. Worth noting, though, this channel is not moderated or guided by the cruise line. The shape it takes is organic, often led by the veteran cruisers with experience to share, or travel agents looking to boost their reach.
What does it look like when a brand takes more ownership of the pre- and post-experience community formation? How can they fuel FOMO for future sailings, build loyalty and become a favorite or most authentic brand to the consumer? It’s one of the big things we discuss as Gen City Labs develops FLYWHL. We’re exploring how to create tighter knit communities around a celebrated brand, as well as how to let consumers know they are seen and valued.
The Parallel to Digital Communities
There’s a few lessons above that I try to bring to Non-Fungible Heroes and our clients. Whether we’re talking Discord, Twitter, Reddit or other platforms, a lot of the same principles apply. Here’s my tips for you:
- Create opportunities for participation. On social media that often takes the form of asking questions, but in Web3 communities that includes events and games, such as art contests and poker tournaments, lore brainstorms and ask-the-founders chats. Make sure these opportunities are easy to discover and set reminders for. Consider your audience: are you speaking to people around the globe and across time zones? Be considerate of timelines, replays and asynchronous events.
- Make on-boarding easy. This is one of my goals for 2023: Make it easier for someone to arrive and understand the ethos of the project and feel quickly at home in the community. When an NFT project is minting, the community arrives at the project at the same time- it’s ground level for everyone. But for more mature communities (say a year to two years after minting) the learning curve can be steep to discovering the history, inside jokes, full scope of utility and more. We should endeavour to make quick guides, welcome commands, and meet & greets that help new people assimilate easily.
- Embrace your unique lingo and culture. Encourage the development of things that make your community unique: celebrate stand-out community members, make memes and copypasta, and create words that evoke your brand. These are things that can shape something that’s differentiated from other digital communities where they can choose to invest their time and energy.
Got questions or other thoughts on the matter? Find me on Twitter or LinkedIn and lets chat.
Cross-posted to LinkedIn.
