Inside the TikTok cruise's unlikely brand-creator partnership

TikTok creator Marc Sebastian’s pitch to Atria Books to convince the publishing company to sponsor his voyage on Royal Caribbean’s “Ultimate World Cruise” began with a seemingly counterproductive line: “I don’t read, and I hate cruises.” But it’s precisely that antithetical partnership of a non-reader representing a book publisher, coupled with Sebastian’s irreverent, blunt attitude toward being on the extravagant 274-day worldwide cruise, that has made their TikTok campaign together so successful. From the moment Sebastian posted his first video on Jan. 5 announcing the partnership—complete with a “The Real Housewives”-inspired intro—Atria Books has more than doubled its TikTok following, according to Lisa Sciambra, its VP and director of publicity, and has received hundreds of comments from people profusely thanking the company for sending Sebastian on the cruise. And perhaps most importantly, Atria’s collaboration with Sebastian has put the brand on the map among thousands of Gen Z consumers, many of whom likely weren’t aware it even existed until a few weeks ago. @marcsebastianf follow along as #marcreadsabook all thanks to @Atria Books and keep an eye out for the winner cause i’m gonna host some book clubs on Live! #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #royalcaribbean #cruisetok #booktok #books ♬ original sound - Marc Sebastian Sebastian himself was only vaguely familiar with Atria—a division of Simon & Schuster—when they appeared in his email inbox, and that was only because he has a few friends who are writers, he said. And it was the last brand he expected to respond to his joking request for someone to “put [him] on the cruise” in a video he shared in late December, he said last week while onboard. He had only posted that video in an effort to cash in on the buzz around the “Ultimate World Cruise,” which had been captivating TikTok users since it departed on Dec. 10 and passengers began vlogging their experiences onboard. “I had seen everyone talking about this nine-month cruise,” Sebastian said. “So, I made that video being like, ‘Put me on the cruise. I’ll go, I’ll cause drama, I’ll wreak havoc, et cetera,’ as a joke. We just took this joke a little too far.” @marcsebastianf there will be enough footage for at LEAST 3 season. 1 hr episodes. @Royal Caribbean PUT ME IN COACH #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #royalcaribbean #realitytv #cruise #serenadeoftheseas #uwc #royalcarribeancruise ♬ original sound - Marc Sebastian Sebastian’s 1.6 million followers, accustomed to his humorous, vlog-style TikTok content, were excited by the idea of him stirring up drama on the cruise. After all, much of the voyage’s appeal to TikTok users has been its resemblance to a reality TV show, complete with characters (the passengers recording their journey aboard the ship) and plotlines (usually minor incidents, like scuffles between passengers). He didn’t want his audience to pay for his ticket to board the ship, but he eagerly invited brands to do so—and within 48 hours, Atria had reached out inviting Sebastian to pitch himself to them in a call scheduled for Christmas Eve, he said. “The idea [to reach out] came from someone in the Atria publishing office, who then reached out to our marketing and social media teams to see what they thought,” Sciambra wrote in an email. “Everyone got behind the idea right away.” Also read: A guide for marketing to Gen Z Sebastian’s concept for the campaign was to lean into the reality TV-inspired energy around the cruise and the common trope within the genre of “taking someone out of their element and putting them somewhere completely different, where they have no idea what’s going on,” he said. Sebastian, who hadn’t read a novel in years and hated the idea of being stuck on a cruise ship, could be the out-of-place star of that reality series, revealing the drama unfolding on the cruise in daily confessionals while attempting to complete a single book and stumbling his way through hosting a book club. Atria was immediately on board, he said. “I wanted this to feel like it was my regular content—like it was just me on this weird-ass cruise promoting this book that I’m actually reading,” Sebastian said. “Usually when I get a brand deal, there’s so many parameters. Like, ‘it needs to be done this way—I need this shot, this shot and this shot.’ But Atria’s been so supportive and so willing to allow me to do stuff, even if they knew that it might get a little saucy. They’re like, ‘Do it, as long as it’s the content you want to make [and] as long as the book stuff is coming through and brand awareness is happening.’” On paper, Sebastian’s partnership with Atria has only included two sponsored videos: the Jan. 5 video announcing the brand deal and inviting viewers to vote for which book he’d be reading throughout his 18-day stay on the cruise, and a video he shared on Jan. 10 in which he pretends to hold a book club while sitting on the ground next to a group of penguins in Argentina. That video, which Sebastian filmed in a single take while being yelled at by the tour guide leading the group, is “[his] favorite ad [he’s] ever made,” he said. @marcsebastianf pending i’m not being thrown around the ship like a loose quater in a washing machine :heart: love you very much @Atria Books and @Will Dean Author :books: #drakepassage #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #royalcaribbean #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise #marcreadsabook #booktok #books #penguin ♬ Murder On The Dancefloor - Sophie Ellis-Bextor Though he had never hosted a book club before boarding the cruise, Sebastian has since livestreamed a handful of discussions around the novel that won the vote, “The Last One,” which is fittingly set on a cruise. They’ve mostly consisted of Sebastian recapping sections of the book and tying plot points back to his experience on the cruise—though one included a drama-filled moment where Sebastian and one of the friends he made aboard the ship were escorted out of the “Pinnacle Club Lounge,” a space reserved for those in the highest tier of Royal Caribbean’s loyalty program. “The whole time [guest services] was kicking me out I’m there going, ‘This is such good content,’” he said. He later found out the person who had reported him being in the private lounge was someone on land, not another passenger on the ship—meaning the snitch was someone streaming the TikTok book club, he said. @marcsebastianf you coulda bought a double shot grande mocha with oat milk but instead…. #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise ♬ original sound - Marc Sebastian Thus far, Sebastian has amassed over 47 million views across his cruise-related videos, both the two directly sponsored by Atria and a slew of others sorting the daily cruise drama into three buckets: “fabulous,” for events he enjoyed; “pressing charges” for incidents that annoyed him; and “prison, honey” for especially aggravating onboard happenings. Even before stepping foot on the cruise, Sebastian knew he wanted his videos to have the feel of a FaceTime conversation with a friend but also an episodic format that would have people “refreshing [his] feed all the time trying to see if there was a new episode.” The hashtag created on Jan. 5 for the partnership, #MarcReadsABook, has since garnered an additional 8.7 million views. Atria has created several videos for its own TikTok channel that bounce off of Sebastian’s content, such as one silently reacting to Sebastian’s announcement he was heading on the cruise and another promoting Sebastian’s book club. TikTok users have filled their comment sections on these videos with overwhelmingly positive responses, from “@Marc Sebastian is the best decision you guys have made in ages!!” to “Thank you for putting Marc on the cruise ship!!!” @atriabooks the atria office 🤝 marc’s cruise room (places with bad overhead lighting) #marcreadsabook #booktok #9monthworldcruise #thelastone #cruisetok ♬ sonido original - Lucía Rodríguez Sebastian attributes the success of the partnership to the fact that Atria empowered him to shape many of the creative decisions involved in the campaign. He’s worked with several other brands in the two years since TikTok became his full-time career, including CarMax and Marc Jacobs, but he called his work with the brand “by far [his] favorite marketing campaign that [he’s] been a part of.” As an added bonus, it’s also helped reignite his interest in reading, he said. “I didn’t want to just be an influencer anymore,” he said. “I’m tired of just going, ‘Hey, buy this product.’ I want to take influencer brand trips and marketing to another level, which is taking these products and making an entire story and narrative out of them, and doing it in a really fun way that keeps people entertained. If you just allow [influencers] to take on a bigger role in the creative process, marketing wouldn't feel so much like marketing.” Sebastian will release one more Atria-sponsored video before disembarking on Jan. 23, which he says will include “a little bit of a twist.” But he’s excited to finally be back on land and “get off this goddamn ship,” he said. “I've had two other cruise companies reach out to me and go, ‘Hey, you didn’t like cruising with this company—why don’t you try ours?’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘I would rather die, but thank you so much.’ I will never step foot on another cruise ship again.”

Inside the TikTok cruise's unlikely brand-creator partnership

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