Saatchi lands 3m account to launch the second Titanic

Saatchi & Saatchi has been hired to promote a 270m luxury liner modelled on the doomed Titanic, which will revisit the original ship’s watery grave during a Millennium cruise.

South African shipping company RMS Titanic handed the Charlotte Street agency the 3m advertising and consultancy account without a pitch last week.

RMS Titanic has bought the plans for the liner from its original builders, Harland & Wolf, and will build the replica in shipyards in Durban, South Africa.

However, the agency is quick to point out that the South African ship “will have major modifications including hi-tech engines, navigation and safety equipment along with air conditioning, satellite television and global communications facilities.”

The ship will make its first voyage from Southampton to New York on 29 December 1999. The trip is being billed as a Millennium cruise, and at 11pm on December 31 the ship will pause at the spot where the original vessel sank.

Hamish Pringle, Saatchi & Saatchi vice-chairman and marketing director, says: “The new Titanic is likely to become an icon for the Millennium, reflecting all our hopes and aspirations.”

The original ship went down on its maiden voyage on April 15 1912, 400 miles off Halifax, Nova Scotia drowning 1,523 people.