Every year, Carnival Cruise Line’s biggest challenge is getting 5 million guests onboard. Last year, that number grew with the launch of their largest ship to-date. Around the same time, they moved some of their ships to new cities.

With competitive pressure and category capacity growth, we needed to show people across the country what it means to Choose Fun with Carnival, before they had the chance to actually sail on a Carnival cruise.

A successful campaign would generate buzz around the launch of Carnival’s new ship and the ships arriving in each new market, while driving lead-generation for future communication with new prospects.

The Carnival AirShip is a blimp that looks exactly like Carnival Horizon, Carnival’s newest and largest ship to-date. For months, it flew over towns, cities, highways and byways bringing nautical fun to the masses, while generating buzz around Carnival ships arriving in each new city.

By posting a picture or video of the AirShip on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #ChooseFun, people had the chance to win a free Carnival cruise.

A campaign microsite gave entrants the chance to learn more about Carnival’s ships and their best features, sign up for future mailings, and visit Carnival.com to book a sailing.

To successfully launch Carnival’s largest ship to-date, we needed to create and nurture relationships with cruisers and non-cruisers across the country. Since non-cruisers have never set foot on a Carnival ship, our campaign had to highlight Carnival fun and get them excited to learn more. All while reigniting existing cruisers’ love for Carnival’s unique brand of fun.

Using proprietary Carnival data, we identified key flyover markets based on market opportunity size, conversion potential, and openness to cruise.

To inspire action, the AirShip and all surrounding communications drove people to use our campaign hashtag, #ChooseFun, and visit a campaign microsite to learn about Carnival’s ships, book sailings, and sign up for future correspondence.

The Carnival AirShip is a 130 foot, two ton, ship-shaped blimp. From 08/29/2018 - 02/17/2019, it cruised the skies above over thirty different cities, bringing nautical fun to people across the country.

Before the AirShip arrived in each city, we got the word out via a launch film, paid social media ads on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, paid digital radio and banner ads on Pandora, paid search ads, and DJ Live Reads. By sharing a picture or video of the AirShip on social, people had the chance to win a free Carnival cruise. A campaign microsite taught entrants about each ship’s best features, helped them book sailings, and gave them the chance to sign up for future correspondence.

The campaign was massive and it was a massive success, generating over 30,000 entries, racking up over 378 million impressions, and getting airtime (no pun intended) on ABC, NBC, USA TODAY, EXTRA, YAHOO!, FOX, and more. Plus, it gave social engagement a boost, increasing daily brand mentions across platforms by 77%.