The cruise line MSC asked us to grab people’s attention during the world’s biggest port festival in Hamburg. A real challenge, considering our biggest competitor AIDA Cruises already booked all on-site advertising. And: we had almost zero budget.

A "David against Goliath“ situation. But if you’re facing a challenge you can't solve - change it into a challenge you can solve. How? We turned our 90,000-ton cruise into a new medium, modifying its horn to enter the harbour with a monumental anthem: The White Stripes’ song "Seven Nation Army“.

As intended, our PR stunt became the talk of the town. Briefing accomplished. However, it didn’t stop here. Video recordings from visitors went viral and created a publicity buzz in many different channels: TV, online newspapers and magazines, blogs, social media...

Overall, we reached 69 million global impressions – without any media-spendings.

In collaboration with some dedicated sound engineers we tweaked our cruise liner’s ship horn and turned it into a media channel of its own. Then we entered the harbour with a monumental anthem: The White Stripes’ song "Seven Nation Army“, played for the first time by a 90,000-ton cruise ship.

The MSC Magnifica blasting a rock anthem hijacked the attention of the whole festival and established MSC Cruises as a cool and contemporary cruise brand. But it didn’t stop here. Video recordings from visitors went viral and activated people far beyond the actual event to engage with the brand. It was shared, written and talked about in numerous media channels all over the world – digital as well as traditional. With a production budget of only 5,000 Euros and zero media spending money we created a worldwide buzz and reached up to 69 million global impressions.

Our ship even travelled from Hamburg, Germany, to Burbank, California, and landed in the famous late-night talk show “CONAN”. There it baffled one special guest, Mr Jack White himself: “I didn’t know that ships can play songs.” Well, now he does – and with him people from all over the world.