About This Project

Family-targeted whale watching cruises are Hornblower’s bread and butter during the summer.
These fast ads had to convey the educational content, awe, and excitement you were sure to encounter on the water.

No problem, but there were three problems with this project:

1) zero budget for images
2) all whales had to be gray whales—the only ones around in the summer
3) headline had to exactly introduce the 5 specific benefits I had determined

Then the fun began. I viewed over 500 free Google-search whales—gray whales—to find action shots that lent themselves to a snappy, focused headline. We seasoned copywriters generally scoff at puns—but a couple of shots just demanded. I caved. This campaign was one of Hornblower’s most-viewed the entire summer.