Carnival Cruise Lines is kicking off a multi-channel ad campaign geared to attract legions of cruise newbies.
The 2012 campaign, developed by Arnold Worldwide, will include national and regional TV spots, online display ads, a 3D Times Square builboard with the tagline "Cruising from New York," as well as ads perched atop taxis and in elevators and subways.
The TV spots contrast the terror of alternative types of vacations with the pristine, breathtaking possibilities of cruising on Carnival Fun Ships, which are slated for $500 million in upgrades.
Here's a preview of one of the commercials, which shows a couple gazing serenely at the sea onboard the Carnival Magic or another Fun Ship and recalling last year's vacation fiasco of getting attacked in their car by a bear and another ferocious four-legged creature, seemingly at a campground or national park.
You can view the video here.
Carnival apparently borrows from HomeAway's playbook in the airing of its 2010 "Hotel Hell Vacation" Super Bowl ads, which showed the horrors of hotel stays versus the allures of vacation rentals. Here's HomeAway's "Hotel Hell Vacation" clip:
It's interesting to juxtapose the peaceful, romantic portrait that Carnival's 2012 campaign conjures with the Red Frog Rum Bar & Blue Iguana Tequila Bar video that currently is featured on Carnival's YouTube channel.
It looks like Carnival is offering mixed marketing and advertising messages for differing demographics.
Cruise lines, of course, make much use of video and YouTube these days to attract new passengers. In the following video, P&O Cruises shows off a refurbishment of the Oriana, which returned to Southampton, UK, December 21: