‘Cruising content lifts our ratings by 10%’: Seven’s morning TV director on what wins viewers
Running content about travelling via cruise ships lifts Seven’s morning television audience by “at least 10%”.
That is according to Sarah Stinson, former executive producer of The Morning Show and current director of morning television at Seven, who said “cruising is so big for our viewers”.
“I cannot begin to tell you… Every time we do a segment, we see at least 10% ratings increase,” she told the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit late last week.
Sarah Stinson says curation is key
She said while some audience excitement and engagement is driven by tactics and tools such as giveaways, bigger consumer trends are actually driving the behaviour.
“I’m onto something,” she said. “People don’t want all this choice. They want things curated. I want things curated.”
This, she said, applies to both the curated experience of cruising, and the content curation that traditional linear television offers.
“Everybody is overwhelmed with so much choice. Mainstream media, we’ve seen a surge. Our current results have [just] come in. [Our audience] is up 7%. We’re finding that people are starting to come back to us in droves. They’ve tried something else. They want authenticity. They want trust,” she said about television’s point of difference in travel marketing.
“[AI has completely overtaken and] they don’t actually know what they’re getting. So with us, we’re finding, particularly in the tourism sector, it has absolutely taken off.
“We’ve had some really big campaigns over the past six weeks that have done ridiculous numbers. And I think it’s because we curate a lot of the content for people. They know that if they’re watching a program like ours, it’s trusted. They know who’s delivering the message. Our hosts are well-known. There’s that connection. We know how to tell stories as well. So nothing with us is a hard sell. We’re not gonna do a series or a segment on things that we don’t believe in….
“And people want that escape at the moment. The news cycle is so heavy, that travel is giving this amazing lift.”
Sarah Stinson on stage at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit
This, she said, was a key difference between traditional linear television and emerging tools such as ChatGPT.
“With us, it’s trusted. There’s so much choice online, and we all spend hours and hours and hours going through things, but sometimes you just want to be told ‘You know what? This [is the go-to] destination.’ ‘Where’s everyone travelling at the moment?’ ‘Where’s a good place for an exchange rate?’ We do so many stories just breaking it down for people. And, yes, you can get it on ChatGPT, but how do you know you can trust that? Which is something our viewers would be thinking.”
This consumer behaviour of increasingly seeking simpler options in the face of overwhelming possibilities, also drives people towards the cruising experience, she said.
“So you pay your money, you’ve got your food there, you’ve got your activities, somebody’s done it all for you, and you’re all together,” she said of cruising’s curation.
“And it’s relatively safe as well. And people want that for their families. That safety point is so true. People are so concerned about travelling. Even if you’re going to Europe, people are worried about flying over the Middle East, all that sort of thing.”
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