Carnival Corp. has announced that Bette Shapiro from Red Bud, Illinois, is the official winner of its World's Leading Cruise Lines Marketing Challenge.
Selected randomly from over 115,000 people who participated in the contest, Shapiro's prize is a yearly cruise for life onboard her choice of three of Carnival Corp.'s cruise brands in North America – Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line or Princess Cruises.
Shapiro won the contest by participating in Carnival Corporation's recent marketing challenge that gave consumers across North America the chance to provide input on the company's new TV advertising concepts, one of which debuted on NBC-TV's broadcast of the Super Bowl on February 1. Hosted by comedian and actor Cedric the Entertainer, the interactive crowdsourcing contest let people vote for their favorite of four potential TV commercials to be used throughout 2015 with a chance to win the grand prize.
Carnival Corporation also announced that Sherry Laemmle, a realtor from Bella Vista, Arkansas, will receive 100 days of free cruising as the official winner of its #LoveCruising Twitter contest that asked consumers to tweet about why they love the cruise experience.
Launched as part of the company's 2015 marketing initiative to grow awareness and demand for cruising, the Twitter contest generated thousands of entries. This included one of Laemmle's tweets that read "@CarnivalPLC no place else we'd rather be as a family! #LoveCruising" and featured a family photo in front of the Carnival Cruise Line ship Carnival Elation, which sails out of the Port of New Orleans.
Additionally, Carnival Corporation gave away a free cruise to Richard Vronman from Escondido, California, and Carolyn Benson from Cape Coral, Florida, as part of a contest rewarding select travelers who have used the company's new "CRUISE-A-NALITY" tool. The tool helps people decide what type of cruise vacation and brand experience is right for them based on a series of personality-focused questions that generate a cruise "persona" for all types of travelers.
These various contests and components from Carnival Corporation's new marketing initiative all led to the company's first-ever multi-brand TV commercial, "Come Back to the Sea," a 60-second spot that aired during the Super Bowl – timed with to coincide with Wave Season.
The multi-phase marketing initiative targeting new cruisers will continue throughout 2015. Thus far, all the elements of the campaign have driven consumer and media engagement including:
- 4,000+ media placements resulting in more than 10 billion media impressions
- 18,000+ social mentions reaching over 80 million in social audience
- 6.46 million views of the commercials on YouTube and other platforms
Consumers will continue to be able to use WorldLeadingCruiseLines.com, the online home of the larger marketing initiative, as a hub for new tools, functionally, news and content from the company's nine global cruise brands, as well as information on future developments related to the ongoing 2015 marketing efforts of Carnival Corporation.