Royal Caribbean wanted a fun way to showcase signature dishes and fun foods linked to key destinations, and I storyboarded stop motion ideas around the theme. The visuals needed to be vibrant and accessible, conveying all the information in short form video format. A balance had to be struck between maintaining a clean, modern aesthetic, while keeping the tone friendly and fun. This is a small sample from the series of Cooktorials videos I worked on that have been widely used across all of Royal Caribbean’s channels, including social media and website.

In 2019, pre-pandemic, Royal Caribbean carried 6,554,000 passengers on cruises around the world. 2020 brought the cruise industry to a virtual standstill, and yet Royal Caribbean maintained a very healthy combined following of 7M+ across its channels. This audience were on their phones and in their kitchens more than ever during 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, unique content still needed to be produced for Royal Caribbean’s SoMe and web channels.

The continued Cooktorials series leveraged both the trend/necessity of home cooking and the “loyal to Royal” audience’s appetite for feel-good content associated with happy travel experiences. I suggested incorporating a stop-motion map intro to link key meals and destinations. This idea was implemented and reworked by the Royal Caribbean in-house content team.

Bringing Royal Caribbean’s signature dishes and exotic destinations into home kitchens, Cooktorials was a small part of a vast series of initiatives produced by Royal Caribbean with support from creative partners (including myself and Paul). All served to bolster brand visibility during a time of unprecedented industry challenges. Relevance and community engagement contributed to Royal Caribbean being primed for an impressive bounce-back once restrictions lifted.

Art Direction, Styling, Stop Motion Editing, Research, Recipe Writing

Photographer & Co-editor | Paul Lindqvist
Project Lead | Chris Gomez
SoMe & Marketing Strategy | Kristin Perera
Additional Edits | Royal Caribbean Social Media Content Team