We brought the feeling of spontaneous group fun – the same kind of fun that Carnival passengers experience – that “Fun for All” kind of fun, to everyday life.For the first time, we reached consumers on a local level, introducing unique sampling opportunities to build loyalty with spontaneous interactive events.“Fun Crowd” events let people play with the world’s largest beach ball and piñata (I’m talking GUINNESS WORLD RECORD big). We dominated local train stations with giant Twister mats and custom-made spinner.Thousands of consumers enjoyed food, refreshments, karaoke and Carnival ship entertainment.

Interactive Aquariums in vacant store fronts combined visual technology, flash animation, voice recognition and gaming, allowing pedestrians to “interact” with the cartoon sea life via their cellphones (also providing data for follow-up marketing).Traditionally, towel animals are created by cabin stewards, so we introduced a wildly popular “Towel Animal Theatre” series through online video and online/digital OOH.

The spontaneous outdoor fun resulted in Carnival sailing away with the highest number of weekly bookings in company history during March – the height of the 2009 recession!Sales are confidential, but we did close the consideration gap with RCI significantly. Branded search volume was up year-on-year and grew faster than RCI.Carnival.com visits increased 15% versus 2008, with Web leads and online bookings up 95%.Call volume rose 25% and total gross bookings grew year-over-year – way above our goal, translating into significant incremental ticket and onboard revenue.Even the “Towel” sensation got some action, delivering +3MM hits on YouTube alone.