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Can Creator Content Sell a High-Dollar Purchase?

Host Trevant With Mike Roca (Norwegian Cruise Line) Published  November 2, 2026 30:32

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Show Notes: 

This episode of Influence at Scale is a conversation recorded live at Creator Economy Live, with Kristina Coughlin, GM of Trevant, and Mike Roca, VP Media at Norwegian Cruise Line.

Creator content is easy to justify when the goal is awareness. It’s a much harder sell when the purchase is a four-to-five-figure cruise booking, measured against paid media’s CPA goals. Kristina and Mike trace how NCL & Trevant's partnership evolved from a single sweepstakes pilot built for upper-funnel impact into an always-on creator program that consistently meets or exceeds internal paid media CPA benchmarks — with thousands of bookings to show for it.

In this episode:

  • Why a high-consideration, high-dollar purchase needs a different creator strategy than a low-cost product

  • How NCL’s content pillars evolved to move a cruise booking down the funnel

  • How the creator pool and content cadence were restructured to build the repeated trust a consumer needs before they book

  • How the NCL-Trevant relationship evolved to support bottom-of-funnel goals

Walk away with a new way to think about creator content as a full-funnel, revenue-accountable channel.

From Trevant: creator marketing that performs like your best paid channel. 

Chapters:

Resources:

How Norwegian Cruise Line increased organic traffic by 300% with a creator-led sweepstakes

From Awareness Play to Booking Engine: What Trevant and Norwegian Cruise Line shared at Creator Economy Live East


Episode Transcript:

Introduction (00:00)
This episode of Influence at Scale is a recording from Creator Economy Live with Kristina Coughlin, GM of Trevant, and Mike Roca, VP of Media at Norwegian Cruise Line. It's a story of a creator program that started as a single sweepstakes pilot built for awareness, but now is an always-on channel that has driven thousands of bookings at a lower CPA than even their internal paid media benchmarks. This is how they got there. Here are Kristina and Mike from Creator Economy Live.

Kristina Coughlin (00:35)
Good morning. Excited to be here. I'm Kristina Coughlin. I'm the general manager of Trevant, and here joined with me is Mike Roca of Norwegian Cruise Line. And very excited to have you here today, Mike, as

A client that we work really closely with, and obviously a trusted partner in this space, and excited to share some great content with you today as we think through how we evolved Norwegian Cruise Line's strategy from more of an upper-funnel awareness play to more of a bottom-of-the-funnel tactic to really focus on efficient bookings for their Cruise Line. So, to really set the stage first, before I kick it off to Mike to do his intro.

As we think through the creator maturity model, over the past better part of 10 years or so, it used to be much easier to really align creator content with awareness, right? With awareness KPIs like impressions and engagements. But over the past couple years, what I think a lot of us have seen is more scrutiny as budgets continue to expand. If there's gonna be budget expansion and scaling of those budgets,

They want to start seeing performance numbers to really align with that and also deeper measurement and attribution models to support that. So we're going to talk a little bit today about how we were able to evolve Norwegian Cruise Line's strategy to really help to not only align with bottom of the funnel, but also help meet or exceed their internal paid CPA benchmarks.

And we'll also talk through how to really align, especially for a really high-consideration, high-dollar purchase, which I'm sure some of you in the room are working with, how to work that down the funnel and how that impacts the whole strategy from creator brief to content pillars to creator partnerships, to even how our relationship evolved from agency to client, so that folks in this room can leave with some clear takeaways of.

How to best apply performance to creator strategies moving forward in a different way to think about creators as a performance channel?

So I'll pass to you, Mike, to do your intro and how you're involved in this program.

Mike Roca (02:39)
Thank you. Thank you, Kristina. first of all, thank you guys for having me.

But any cruisers? Yeah? All right, great. So that's why I always ask that question because I want to know my audience in terms of barriers to entry when it comes to the cruising category. We're big cruisers at the Roca household, so I'm super excited to be at Norwegian Cruise Line. A little bit about me. I've spent most of my career on the agency side. Almost two decades at Omnicom. And I joined Norwegian about five months ago, where I oversee paid media, influencer marketing, SEO, and partnerships. So I have had an amazing time working with Kristina and the team in terms of how do we I think the theme, Kristina, that you're pointing out is accountability, right? Yeah, every dollar now, from a marketing perspective, needs to be tied to revenue, and every dollar is more scrutinized. I think from the creator perspective, the entire sector is in a unique space where there's been so much focus on awareness. Now stakeholders who are in charge of these dollars want to see accountability when it comes to driving true revenue.

Whereas the rest of the marketing sphere has been so focused on the bottom of the funnel. Yeah. Now it's kind of reversed, where it's like we need to focus more on awareness. So it's interesting to see the juxtaposition with where the creator space is versus general paid media when you think about programmatic or digital or video media. But we have had an amazing time in terms of this journey.

Really kind of seeing what Creator could do in lower- and mid-funnel tactics.

Kristina Coughlin (04:36)
Yeah. It's been an incredible journey and so many lessons learned throughout the process, which I think some of us will be sharing here today with a lot of you.

What Does a Creator Brief Need to Get Right for a High-Consideration Purchase?

But let's set the stage, right? So let's think through as that creator program first started, and before it was a performance conversation, you know, what did that look like, and what were those shifts that caused it to evolve over time, knowing that I know scrutiny in the space, it's definitely one thing. What did the NCL team see specifically that really triggered that, you know what, we need to drive this from where it was yesterday to where it is today?

Mike Roca (05:13)
I think everyone's following consumption patterns, trends. You know, everyone at Norwegian with the market in has their favorite creators, the influencers that they follow. And we knew that there's a place and space for them on the plan. I think when it came down to brass tacks in terms of performance, QBRs, really where you kind of see what your true ROI is, I think that was the missing piece. And for us to allocate funds to something where we're not seeing the output created a bit of tension and pressure in terms of understanding what can creator do in this space. We know Creator actually has the power. Now we need to showcase it.

Kristina Coughlin (05:53)
Yeah, a hundred percent. And let's dig a little bit into how how we were able to make that happen, right? We I think a lot of us know one of the biggest parts of a creator program is the brief, right? Having a good brand brief can really make or break what what that content looks like. One thing I love about working with with your team, Mike, is that your team gets it, right? Your team gets that there's an art and a science to really good brand brief, making sure that, yes, you have the brand guardrails that eliminate risk in follow legal and compliance and making sure you got that key messaging in, but also making sure that it has that creative freedom to allow the creators to do what they do best, which also directly impacts ultimately performance.

What Does a Creator Brief Need to Get Right for a High-Consideration Purchase?

So, Mike, as you think through as your team ideates around briefs and putting together that the art and science of what a brief is, what does that well-branded brief look like to you?

Mike Roca (06:49)
The brief is the Bible, right? And a well-crafted brief really does its job when we really focus on the areas by providing liberty, right, to creators. I think there's been so much discussion from guardrails to, you know, sometimes creators say like, I feel like I'm on a leash, yeah, right, with some of the guidance that's on this brief.

So our head of influencer marketing, who was supposed to be here, but he's in Colombia with his family, really has been able to kind of get the organization to rally around the importance of creators and understanding that we need to give them the liberty to be authentic, to be themselves. I think that's really where we unlock the true power of creators, and that's gonna ultimately help us drive more influence down the funnel. So whereas, you know, we craft briefs for our other, you know, media properties or our or disciplines, we use the same approach and strategy, right? I think from a paid perspective, there has been a lot of onus in terms of delivering ultimate ROI. For creator, we haven't been there. So this is completely new to us.

Where know the last six months has been an exploratory journey in terms of understanding what creators can do and how they can actually can compete against paid media but also collaborate with paid media. And we've had some great unlock there and collaboration with the paid media teams. but just really kind of going through the brief and understanding that we need to make sure we meet the creator in the middle.

And not give too much guidance. but also vice versa, the creator understanding that, you know, it's a high, like you mentioned, because it's a high-consideration product that we're pushing. Yeah. You know, I wish we were selling toothpaste, but we're not. We're selling, you know, fifteen hundred dollar cruises that sometimes takes a lot of attention and focus on. And I think from the creator space and

What's so beautiful about the creator space is creators to a consumer, they're part of their friend network, right? So there's a lot of liberty and a lot of fun that we can have in that space. Whereas it's very unique to creator versus other channels from a marketing perspective.

How Do Organic Content and Paid Media Feed Each Other in a Creator Program?

Kristina Coughlin (09:23)
Yeah, I totally agree. And there are two things that kind of stuck out with what you just said. One is the collaboration between organic and paid performance. And I think that is one of the most critical parts of the process because we view them as not siloed strategies. They have to work together, especially as you think through creator in amplification, or it's just a paid media strategy as a whole, because the organic creator content feeds the paid media strategy. But then in turn, the paid media strategy drives the signals, the performance at scale that helps ultimately inform.

Future creator briefs, creator partnerships, what's working, what's not working. And that feedback loop is critical. I think that is one of the most overlooked parts of the process, especially when it comes to driving strong performance with creators. And specifically having those conversations with the creators. So talking to the creators and saying, hey, this is what from a a bookings perspective, this is what you're able to drive, because they have access to their own social analytics, but they don't have access to anything after that, right?

And a lot of times these creators are in the dark, right? They don't know. They saw, okay, I drove some good impressions. I think I did well, right? But reality is, the brand might say, you know, I was kind of hoping it'd be more efficient bookings than impressions, right? And I think sharing that feedback with the creator, especially long-term partners, to help inform future content- you know, we've seen that turn mediocre-performing content into great-performing content. But that feedback loop is just so critical in the process.

Mike Roca (11:00)
And it's real, right? I think even having post-mortems with your creators to understand, like what can I improve on? How can I get better in terms of engaging audiences? What's interesting is, you know, I'll tell you a bit, you know, of my journey, right? So I was on the agency side forever. And coming on to the brand side, I saw that there was silos within the org and kind of making sure that there's fluidity between paid media, SEO partnerships, influencer, organic social, because there is so much opportunity to truly put dollars where you're gonna get the most bang for your buck.

And I think from the creator space and our paid media partners, you know — we have WPP here who is our agency of record for paid media — has seen the amazing performance of the content that's coming out of our partnership with Trevant and the creators that we've brought on board. But a lot of that, and we're gonna get at this later, is about consistency and truly a collaboration, right? So I think we're gonna get better at this. The onus is on us, but ultimately the KPI's bookings is gonna dictate kind of what we do next.

And we've been seeing some great results. So I'm super excited. And I think a lot of stakeholders are very excited about what's to come in this space. That's amazing. And you're right, we think about the numbers, right?

How Much More Efficient Is Creator-Driven Booking vs. Paid Media Benchmarks?

We're driving about forty-five percent more efficient bookings, sometimes even higher than that, compared to internal paid media CPA benchmarks. Yeah.

Kristina Coughlin (12:41)
Which is crazy numbers, right? And exciting to see the true efficient performance we're able to drive out of this program.

How does that impact some of the conversations that you're having internally as you think through your holistic future growth strategy?

Mike Roca (12:56)
So, you know, the numbers speak for themselves, right? 45% is a big number. And it really has had a lot of stakeholders, our president, our CEO, kind of rally around Creator. So much that on September 3rd, September 4th, we're launching our new water park on our private island. It's called Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas.

And the water park is called Great Tides. And we're inviting over a hundred, and I think 15 creators, on that launch. And the biggest fanboys of this entire journey is the president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line. They're so excited because they want to see the experience through the creator's lens, right? Because they know that that's where authenticity lies. And they, you know, they understand the importance of it.

Ultimately, we want to get awareness and consideration and all the other you know KPIs and benchmarks that we established in terms of kind of checking the box on "are we moving the needle?" But right now I think that there's high visibility of the creators and influencers within the marketing org and within the entire organization. 

What Convinced NCL’s Leadership to Go All-In on Creators?

So I think that's a big job in itself, right? Is evangelizing and merchandising the work of creators. So, you know, Mike Radlick, who I mentioned and his team have done an amazing job. My job as, you know, the person who's leading the entire squad is to provide them with a forum and a platform to tell their stories of what creators have been doing to drive business results. And the more folks that actually understand the importance and the actual revenue-driving impact that creators have.

The more they don't question it, right? So when we're talking to finance who's in charge of all of our dollars, they're not gonna question, hey, do we put more dollars against creator? They're gonna say, well, I was in that meeting where Mike Radlick was saying that there it's forty-five percent more effective to do a campaign with creators versus, you know, another platform. Let's put another dollar there. And I think that's the biggest question, right, for creators, because you are, you know, your own business in itself, right? So understand how do your brands and how do businesses generate revenue.

Because for every company, it's like where do where's this next dollar gonna impact, right? Like how much ROI am I gonna get with that next dollar.

Kristina Coughlin (15:20)
Yeah. A hundred percent. And then our you know our team's very excited too for that experience on the ship and wrangling some of those creators. So I know that'll definitely

Mike Roca
You have a big job.

Krisitna Coughlin
Yes. It's a big job and they're very excited about it. A lot of creator wrangling. Those of you who work with creators know exactly what I'm talking about.

What Does High-Performing, Conversion-Driving Creator Content Actually Look Like?

Let's dig into content because you dug into that a little bit and in terms of the different types of content strategies, concepts, and pillars. And especially when you're driving a full funnel strategy, there is different types of content for different use cases. And this is something that I think is so important as part of the process. So someone who's responsible for driving upper-funnel awareness, that content should be fundamentally different than content that's conversion-driving content, especially for something that's a high-consideration product. So different briefs, different creators, different concepts to help drive some of those goals to ensure we're really driving that full-funnel picture. What are some examples of things when we think about really strong conversion-driving content and some the top creator performers that we've seen? What are some examples of things that you felt like that they did exceptionally well that helped drive some of those strong performance numbers?

Mike Roca (16:27)
So it goes back to my original question about how many how many cruisers do we have here? Is the fact that we have a large barrier?

In place where there's a lot of folks that would not like, their worst nightmare is to go on a cruise. Right? And it's real. And I speak to folks all the time. They're like, you know, it's just not for me. And I think with what the Cruise industry has got themselves into for so long is we've been speaking to the same set of consumers and loyalists, which is like twenty percent of the consumer base, over and over that we're exhaust and exist in demand, and we're not generating and creating new demand with that other 80%. And I think the generation and the capture, and what's so special and unique with creators is just through storytelling, they could actually, you know, take down those barriers, right? And I think that's a huge opportunity in terms of the educational piece. But the way they do it is very unique. And we can't sometimes do that in a 30-second or 15-second commercial spot.

I think it takes somebody with that relationship with a loyal consumer base, and the creators that we work with, we always talk about quality over quantity in terms of audiences. I think that's where the magic is, right? Having an audience that truly trusts the creators and not thinking that the creator just sold out to come work with so with Norwegian Cruise Line, but say, well, I actually just learned something from this creator or slash my friend, who has showcased that there is a lot of cool things that you can do on a Cruise, right? It's pretty much a floating hotel with amazing destinations and a lot of great food. So for those of you who haven't been on a Cruise, definitely go to our YouTube page, go to our website. We have some really great content out there. And you know, some of the creators have been able to help repurpose some of that content for us.

To tell that story on our behalf.

Kristina Coughlin (18:33)
Yeah, that's amazing. And I know one piece of content that stuck out to me was one of the top performers was doing the de-influencing of why you shouldn't go on an NCL Cruise and then proceeded to say all of these amazing things as to why she loved it so much. So it was like a little bit of like rage bait that she clicked people into of like, well, why shouldn't I go on it? And then if you don't want amazing food, don't go on it. If you don't want to have the time of your life, don't do it, right? And it's just such a fun spin, and I love that. Your team is open to some of those creative ideas that ultimately performed really well because it was a fun spin on the contest.

Mike Roca (19:11)
Because a lot of it is myth-busting. Yeah. And debunking a lot of, you know, preconceived notions of what a Cruise is. Yeah. I think the Cruise industry has completely transformed itself within the last ten to fifteen years that you know there is a complete other side of vacation that folks are just not experiencing.

Kristina Coughlin (19:29)
Yeah, 100%.

How Does NCL Decide Which New Creator Partners Are Worth the Investment?

Now let's dig a little bit into, I know always a favorite topic in this space is budgeting and how to drive efficient spend to drive optimal performance. So I know as an agency, it's always our job to make sure that we're acting as the fiduciary of that creator marketing spend and we're ensuring that we're driving optimal, efficient performance for our brand partners. I'd love to dig into, you know, the process of how to ensure that we're investing into partners wisely, especially as we think through new talent that we're onboarding. So what are some of the ways that we've been able to test efficiently, especially with new partners, and as we think through how those ultimately turned into brand ambassador-type relationships?

Mike Roca (20:14)
Yeah, and I think this is what is so special about integration and collaboration, especially having the organic social and influencer marketing team work more closely with paid media within Norwegian is the fact that we can adopt a lot of processes that are performed well, right? So within paid media, and you know, we've been doing it for a long time, especially on my side, on the agency side, is test and learn, right? Just test and learn and seek how things perform. And based on performance, do you invest more or not? And I think with the creator space.

It's always been the question has, well, do we give a cabin to all creators so that they could get on a ship, experience it? That is actually for us; it's a big hard cost, right? Because we're taking those cabins out of inventory, and finance does not like that. So they're always like, How many cabins do you need, broker? Like truly, do you need this many cabins? Because it equals this amount of potential revenue that we have.

So just kind of working with creators in a way where we could adopt new ways of creating content, if it's green screens or any other content that we could provide them with, but seeing how they perform and also just not kind of, you know, saying, well, we'll work with this creator this quarter and then we're gonna work with these creators this quarter, but creating our actual relationship where creators actually see us as a partner versus something that's more you know, more of a transaction. Yeah.

Right. Absolutely. Which I hate to say, yeah, and I hate using that word because it just feels like there's no no one has skin in the game, right? And I and that's kind of the ultimate goal for us is to ensure that we could do a look back, a QBR, if it's a post mortem and say like we started here and we ended here. And this is how this is how you know, this is where we're gonna go tomorrow.

Kristina Coughlin (22:07)
Yeah. Right. And it goes exactly to that feedback loop, right? And making sure the creators have skin in the game in that feedback loop because good creators care, right? They care about driving performance and being a good partner, and they want to have a long-term partnership just as much as we do, right? So that feedback loop is a critical part of the process. So absolutely agree.

What’s the Biggest Mindset Shift Creators Need to Make to Prove Their Value?

And before we open it up for questions, just one last rapid-fire question for you, Mike. What is the one key, either takeaway or thing, that you would like your peers to think differently about when it comes to creators driving performance?

Mike Roca (22:43)
I think the key for us is understanding that it's truly not an awareness play anymore, especially with creators. I think creators in that space, probably the last five to ten years in its infancy, was focusing on just getting on the plan. You're on the plan now, right? Like creators are on the plan. Now it's understanding like we actually impact ROI. And that is where the rubber hits the road.

And I think that's where the true unlock is in terms of more investment. Right. So for us, is you know, walking into an MMM meeting where we're providing a look back of performance and saying that creator and social is outperforming every other channel on the planet, right? That actually gets folks to look back and actually double-click into what we could be doing more and differently in this space, right? How do we invest more in this space?

I think that's where there's more opportunity. But it really the onus is on partnerships, creators to start asking those questions about like how can I actually ultimately drive impact for us? It's a booking, right? That's the ultimate goal: a booking. I think the next phase of this is going to be attribution, right? Understanding how we can tie back that book into a creator, and we're having those discussions and the industry is having those discussions because.

The creators need that credit, right? I drove these bookings. I think that's gonna be the next chapter to unfold.

Kristina Coughlin (24:19)
Yeah, 100%. And creator measurement is, and that I'm sure there'll be probably a lot of topics on that exact thing because that is, I think, a major thing that is continuing to significantly evolve in this space. So, yes, thank you, Mike. And we'll we'll offer it up to to questions.

And I think as we're getting some questions in, I think one thing that I think is a key theme here is that there is no one silver bullet when it comes to driving performance with creators. It's just a lot of intentional decision-making, optimizations, partnerships, and also the real desire to make it work that really goes into driving strong performance with creators. So with that, we will kick it off with questions.

How Do You Protect Brand Safety Across Hundreds of Creator Campaigns?

So how do you ensure brand safety when dealing with hundreds of creator campaigns at once? And what is the biggest challenge? I can take that one. I think for brand safety, we leverage on our side at Trevant a lot of different platforms that help support with brand safety. So we use Sprout Social as one of our platforms. We've also done, depending on the brand or advertiser, background checks and sometimes manual reviews from our team.

Especially for really nuanced things that clients may be looking for when it comes to brand safety. And having a lot, it really comes down to having a lot of really strong processes and tools in place. So what are those brand safety checks? How long do we have to go back on that? Making sure we see all the flags from the platforms, but also double-checking ourselves, and at scale, it's a process, but also a really important process to ensure we're right working with the right creator talent.

Let's see here. A lot of good questions.

How Are the Right Creators Found, Vetted, and Approved?

How do you select the right creators? And how does searching and vetting process look like? I know we talked a little bit of vetting, but I know for the searching, you know, for us, it's a lot of the times using one, our creator network of creators that we worked with in the past that we have as part of our network that we love working with for a program if it makes sense, or constantly searching net new, often manually in the platforms to find those right creators.

And then I'll pass to Mike on the approving part of stuff. What are you guys looking for when it comes to approving the right creators that our team puts forth in front of you guys?

Mike Roca (26:41)
I think there's a lot to unpack there in terms of just number one, just consistency, right? Our ultimate goal is to make sure that we can land on a set of creators that we continue to work with. So there are a lot of ways to kind of skin the cat in terms of ways to improve.

Ultimately, performance is the number one thing, but storytelling, authenticity, like, is the actual creative and content landing with the audiences that we're going after, right? So I think there's a lot in terms of the journey of improving the type of creators that we work with. But that's, I think, where a lot of the work lies, right?

Kristina Coughlin (27:24)
Yeah, absolutely.

Do Mega Creators or Nano Creators Perform Better With Paid Amplification?

And I see a question here on what do you only use mega creators or do you see value in good nano influencers with performance media applied to boost their content to a wider audience? And I think this is something that's interesting because I you know there was a Wall Street Journal article that just went out this week about how there's a big rise in nano creator partnerships. And I think that makes a lot of sense because we've done some studies internally comparing larger creators to smaller creators when it's applied to paid.

Does having a larger following or influence have any correlation to performance across paid media? The answer to that was actually no. We found that there was no correlation. It's really down to what you just said: the strong storytelling. Are they a really good storyteller? So we're seeing some of that increase in nano creators because they are so cost-efficient from a content perspective. But I also think there's a huge place for some of that mega creator talent or the macro creator talent that does drive more of that stronger organic reach and influence. 

We'd love to hear how you think about that, Mike.

Mike Roca (28:23)
It's a balancing approach. I think mega creators work for different type of you know strategic, you know, objectives that we have. What I love about nanocreators is just based on our business, we're a national brand, we're a global brand. Nationally, like, we have a lot of key home ports: Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego, but we have key source markets where a lot of our guests are coming from, right? So nanocreators can be

Actual mega creators within those respective DMAs and cities. So it's based on what it is that you want to achieve, right? So for us, this year was the first time we sailed out of Philly. So we tapped into a lot of Philly creators and creators that have a great grasp and audiences in that market, and we saw an amazing performance, right? So I think it's based on exactly where you want to lean in. So for us, it's a little bit of both.

We, you know, we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We know that we have to shoot high from a national perspective, but the local layer plays a big part for our business. I think that's where nanocreators kind of you know do their thing in terms of truly kind of engaging and reaching their audience.

Kristina Coughlin (29:38)
Yeah, 100%. And I know we're coming up at time, so for those I know there's a lot more questions in here, feel free, come up afterwards, and ask away, we'll be at the booth and hanging around all day. But thank you all for being here and spending part of your day with us. And thank you, Mike, so much despite coming in at three AM this morning, joining us on the stage. So happy you're here. And hope everyone enjoys the rest of the conference today. Thank you all.