P&O Cruises has taken out adverts to make clear it is not linked to disgraced P&O Ferries.
P&O Ferries sacked 800 staff and replaced them with agency workers on March 17 without consulting workers’ unions.
The highly controversial move has been widely criticised after it emerged the agency workers would be paid £5.50 an hour, £3.40 below the UK average wage.
In a bid to distance itself from the ferry company, P&O Cruises has resorted to taking out full-page adverts in several national newspapers, as well a short film used on social media and an advert on YouTube.
It decided to launch the advertising campaign after backlash from customers who assumed it was linked to ferry company.
The advert shows a tweet from an anonymous Twitter user, calling for the cruise line to be boycotted.
It then reads: “We’ve received a lot of messages like the one above during the past week.
“Some people have thought that this relates to P&O Cruises. But it doesn’t.
“Our names may both begin with P&O, but that’s where the similarity ends.
“We are separate organisations and have been for 20 years.”
P&O Cruises is owned by leisure travel firm Carnival Corporation, while P&O Ferries is owned by shipping and logistics business DP World.
The cruise operator’s brand has taken a hit since P&O Ferries announced the shock decision to sack its staff two weeks ago.
According to a YouGov BrandIndex tool, the cruise brand’s overall index score has dropped 18.8 points since March 17, when the scandal broke.
On March 14, three days before the mass sackings, P&O Cruises claimed a positive index score of 6.4. By March 27, it was down to -12.4.
A P&O Cruises spokesperson said: “We wanted to clarify any possible confusion in the mind of the public and media.
“We are P&O Cruises and we are part of the world’s largest leisure travel organisation which is Carnival Corporation & plc and we have been for 20 years.”
