The cruise category had its best year in history last year. But while it is booming post-COVID, it is not growing long term. To grow at the pace of its potential, Carnival must build new brand love with first-time cruiser audiences who historically have been extremely weary of cruising, especially with a brand that has earned a reputation as ‘the party cruise’. To overcome their hesitation, we had to give potential travelers a chance to try on the Carnival experience before they commit their precious vacation time to a new experience. We found the #1 driver for American Travelers is the desire to have fun on vacation – they just didn’t view Carnival as an option for their kind of fun. By reimagining Carnival experiences in events & spaces these audiences have already identified as personal sources of enjoyment, we were able to bridge the gap between caution and desire.

We needed travelers to feel the fun for themselves, radically shifting our marketing approach from delivering ‘fun in the feed’ to ‘feeding fun IRL’. We saw direct attribution between time spent with Carnival activations and lower funnel leads, so we rallied around a new media KPI; TSIF - ‘Time Spent in Fun’. This served as our bullseye to build physical experiences that were stickier and more sharable than ever before. Travelers are 5x more likely to commit to an experience if they have a clear understanding of what it entails.

Analyzing our growth segments, we mapped the most valuable cultural moments, cultural events and immersive spaces to take over that had the potential to garner the most social sharing. As a national brand, we identified local moments across different regions of the country in the North East, South, and the West, and ultimately a national broadcast to connect with sports fans across the country. With these moments and events in hand, our strategy was to “Turn On The Fun” - taking Carnivals on-board experiences off-the-ship and into the most socially driven moments of the year.

We turned on Fun in the most high-impact, immersive, playful and powerful moments of the year. To ensure we connected with potential cruisers across an array of their passions, we identified four disparate events:

1. New Years Eve to physically Turn ON the Carnival branded light switch to ignite the midnight moment for the nation.

2. SXSW festival to construct our famous slide & bar for concert-goers in Austin.

3. Bravocon in Vegas to bring fans closer to the housewives at our bar all weekend long.

4. National Major League Sports Telecasts to engage as many fans as possible with a mixed-reality stunt reaching 60MM+ viewers.

Carnival’s Turned on the Fun and ignited a newfound desire to cruise for fun with Carnival. We saw an epic increase of +15% New Guest Bookings YoY – a shift that’s never been achieved in the history of the business. By showcasing that Carnival is the best choice for all-inclusive fun, we drove 25,000 more bookings overall YoY.

And what about TSIF? We helped Americans spend +54% more time in fun! Not only did we drive bookings, we helped travelers return to their most playful and carefree selves. Fun in the physical world manifested across the digital world as Carnival was shared across social +30K times.

Our media drove more than fun. This campaign was measured against key objectives resulting in:

+20% lift above benchmark in all Awareness metrics

+7% Unaided Awareness

+6% Aided Awareness

+10% Consideration