Norwegian Cruise Line's Pepsi Partnership

(MoneyWatch)  Norwegian Cruise Line and Pepsi are offering free unlimited Pepsi-branded fountain beverages for those passengers booking a week-long cruise before Oct. 15.

Although I couldn't find the actual deal on the Norwegian Web site, I did find it on their Facebook page. The deal usually retails for $6.25 a day. Pepsi will also be having a sweepstakes with three NCL cruises as the grand prizes.

A summer promotion is nothing new for Pepsi, which offers a multitude of them (including promoting caffeine-drenched Mountain Dew by offering "battle-bots" to World of Warcraft online gamers.) The only difference is that Norwegian is a mass-market cruise line -- now with Pepsi logos emblazoned on adult-size sippy cups. However, the cups (see left) as far as logo-emblazoned cups go, are not too bad.
I'm not sure passengers will see Pepsi banners and labels everywhere, but it's a sure sign that cruise lines are willing to go an extra step further with vendors and sponsors. This kind of flexibility will help the company and the industry as it struggles to stay out of the red. And if Pepsi is willing to comp free drinks for an additional advertisement on cruise paperwork, or in staterooms, would passengers care? Free drinks are free drinks.

I predict a much larger amount of sponsorship and advertising on cruise ships in the coming months.