UPDATE:
Several hours after Tnooz posted a story exposing Carnival Cruise Lines’ first social media policy for travel agents, which would go into effect Jan. 1, 2010, the cruise line conceded it erred and will amend the policy.
“It wasn’t our intent for the social media guidelines to be as far-reaching as the current wording would indicate,” says CCL spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz.
“We are re-examining the wording and will be making some adjustments so it is more clearly explained what requires written approval and what doesn’t.”
De la Cruz says the amendments will apply to CCL’s policy only. She was unsure how Carnival Corp.’s other North America brands would handle social media policy.
The spokeswoman says CCL’s goal is to modify its 2010 travel agency policy “very quickly.”
“Clearly, the wording was over-reaching and that wasn’t our intent,” de la Cruz says, adding that the Tnooz story spurred the about-face.
At this juncture, she declined to outline the specifics of the planned changes.
A closer examination of the wording, de la Cruz adds, proved the policy needed to be modified.
CCL has long restricted travel agents’ use of trademarks in marketing and promotional materials, in part to clamp down on unauthorized discounting. Transitioning that policy to social media is where the cruise line apparently ran into some problems.
Without seeing the substance of the planned changes, it is impossible to evaluate CCL's new social media.
However, at least we can applaud the line in the interim for tackling the issue swiftly -- and head-on.
Several hours after Tnooz posted a story exposing Carnival Cruise Lines’ first social media policy for travel agents, which would go into effect Jan 1, 2010, the cruise line conceded it erred and will amend the policy.
“It wasn’t our intent for the social media guidelines to be as far-reaching as the current wording would indicate,” says CCL spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz.
“We are re-examining the wording and will be making some adjustments so it is more clearly explained what requires written approval and what doesn’t.”
De la Cruz says the amendments will apply to CCL’s policy only. She was unsure how Carnival Corp.’s other North America brands would handle social media policy.
The spokeswoman says CCL’s goal is to modify its 2010 travel agency policy “very quickly”.
“Clearly, the wording was over-reaching and that wasn’t our intent,” de la Cruz says, adding that the Tnooz story spurred the about-face.
At this juncture, she declined to outline the specifics of the planned changes.
A closer examination of the wording, de la Cruz adds, proved the policy needed to be modified.
CCL has long restricted travel agents’ use of trademarks in marketing and promotional materials, in part to clamp down on unauthorized discounting. Transitioning that policy to social media is where the cruise line apparently ran into some problems.
Without seeing the substance of the planned changes, it is impossible to evaluate CCL's new social media.
ORIGINAL POST:
Carnival Cruise Lines intends to introduce a new travel agency policy that bars partners from using any Carnival trademark or intellectual property on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn or a blog - any social media website, really - without prior written approval.
This is Carnival's first social media policy for travel agents, and it's a bruiser.
Travel agencies violating the policy, which social media purists might say amounts to a form of censorship, could lose their right to book the line's sailings and commissions.
If social media is supposed to shine sunlight on friendships, vacations, business, news and trends, Carnival's shortsighted policy seems to be drawing a steel curtain.
The policy, set to start 1 January 2010, covers travel agents' use of dozens of Carnival's trademarks ranging from Carnival Miracle and Fun Online to The World's Most Popular Cruise Line and Skipper's Club.
If this post was written by a CCL travel agent partner, this story apparently would be violating the policy and would be subject to the cruise line's enforcement actions because prior written approval was not given to use these trademarks in a WordPress "blog."
After all, the policy applies to "any profile, account, page or post on a social networking website..." CCL states.
The cruise line's new travel agency policy is part of a larger effort to shore up its trademark and intellectual property rights, including as they relate to paid search and internet domains.
Other Carnival Corp North American brands are implementing new travel agency policies, according to Travel Weekly, but it was unclear whether they would tackle social media issues in the same way that CCL has done.
CCL's social media policy lumps together the company's legitimate concerns about possible hijacking of its trademarks for unauthorized Twitter accounts, user names, profiles and social media advertising, but goes one step further by banning the use of any of these trademarks without prior authorization in tweets, blog posts or YouTube broadcasts.
For example, consider this Dec. 14 tweet from buycruises: "Continue your New Year's Celebration (it doesn't have to end: Santa said so) 7-nt Carnival Liberty Caribbean 1/2: $439 #cruise"
In theory, this tweet, if it were aired in 2010, would violate CCL's new policy if the travel agent had not received prior written authorization from the cruise line.
A first violation requires the travel agency to disable or turn over control of all offending accounts or pages to Carnival.
And, a second violation of the social media policy gives Carnival the right to permanently revoke the agency's ability to sell CCL's sailings and enables the cruise line to keep any commissions the offending agency earned "during the period of an uncured violation," according to the policy.
Of course, it's up to the cruise line to determines if a violation has occurred.
Here's CCL's social media policy, which is slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2010:
Social Media Website Requirements.
"For avoidance of doubt, the requirements of the Policy apply to any profile, account, page, or post on a social networking website (including by example, but not limited to, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) blogging website (including by example, but not limited to BlogSpot.com, Wordpress.com, etc.), Video Website (including by example, but not limited to YouTube, etc.), or any other website operated by a third party, directly or indirectly controlled or posted by Travel Agency (“Social Media Website”). In addition, Travel Agency may not use Carnival‟s Property, anything substantially similar to Carnival‟s Property, or Typos in any username, account name, profile name, page name, or similar for any Social Media Website or display or otherwise use any of Carnival‟s Property or Typos in any page, post, application, or advertising on any Social Media Website without prior written authorization from Carnival." [The bolded text is my doing.]
In the opening paragraph of its new travel agency policy, CCL describes what it means by the intellectual property that falls within the scope of its policy:
"Carnival Cruise Lines, a division of Carnival Corporation (“Carnival”), has established this Travel Agency Policy (this “Policy”) for the advertisement, marketing, selling and booking of, and payment for, cruises offered by Carnival and the use of Carnival‟s intellectual property, including without limitation trademarks, copyright material, imagery and ship photography (collectively, “Carnival’s Property”), whether as used and/or registered by Carnival or whether a variance thereof, whether used on the Internet, in print material or otherwise."
Fellow industry marketers would probably have no problem with the cruise line limiting the use of things like its "imagery and ship photography".
But, in its haste to protect its trademarks, Carnival has cast such a wide net -- by limiting the mention of trademarks throughout social media without prior written approval -- that it effectively gives it the power to severely limit how CCL cruises are marketed on agents' own websites or if they wish to express their opinions about all things -- or anything, for that matter -- related to Carnival.
The result is that travel agents would become the have-nots, as it relates to CCL, in social media.
After all, anyone else is relatively unfettered and has the right to tweet, opine or post a status update about a Carnival cruise or policy while using the trademarks "Club Carnival" or "Carnival Bed," for instance.
However, under the line's first social media policy, travel agents must toe the line, at CCL's sole discretion, or risk losing their ability to book one of the world's premier cruise brands.
For its part, CCL states the social media policy was not drafted with the aim of muzzling travel agents.
CCL spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz says:
"The intent is simply to try to ensure that our agency partners are working with us in how they represent the Carnival brand within social media. If an agency wants to tweet about a publicly available Carnival special, they are free to do so. If they want to upload Carnival assets such as video, photos and other content, they need our approval.
"The objective is to simply ensure that our trademarks are being used in a coordinated and on-brand manner."
However, there is an extremely wide gap between CCL's stated intent, and the language in the cruise line's social media policy, which makes all use of Carnival trademarks by travel agency partners subject to the line's prior restraint.
The stated policy does not merely pertain to "assets such as video, photos and other content," but requires prior authorization for use of all CCL "property," including trademarks, "in any page, post, application, or advertising on any Social Media Website..."
Asked to explain the contradiction, de la Cruz says she wasn't familiar enough with the formulation of the policy to comment on the apparent disparity.
De la Cruz does say that the CCL policy enables the line to "cover our bases" to ensure that its trademarks and brand names are used in a manner consistent with what CCL is trying to communicate.
When informed of the cruise line's new stance, Stuart MacDonald, founder and CEO of Tripharbor.com, says CCL's social media policy "sounds like a legal attempt to have a reason to request a cease-and-desist or take action if something goes sideways".
MacDonald adds: "The downside of them missing out on free mentions/promotion seems way more meaningful to me. But they likely need to demonstrate that they are trying to exercise some control over use of their marks if they ever want to have recourse down the line."
If CCL's new social media policy gets widely publicized, the cruise line indeed may get lots of free mentions, but they may be of the backlash variety.
NB: Pic from Kthypryn on Flickr