Carnival Cruise Line has selected TBWA\Chiat\Day New York as its creative agency of record, following a pitch process that was led internally by the brand.

The agency is charged with elevating Carnival’s brand platform to create a distinctive and disruptive position for the brand with a plan for growth. Carnival’s collaboration with TBWA\Chiat\Day New York will launch during the cruise industry’s “wave” season that begins after the December holidays and runs through March, with the first work landing either late this year or early 2025.

“We wanted an agency partner who could really collaborate with us and think about how we continue to disrupt and really transcend the category. That led us to a search, and it led us to TBWA. Their focus on disruption and thinking about pushing against the conventions of the category we felt would be really interesting for us,” said Amy Martin Ziegenfuss, CMO at Carnival, who has been with the company for just over a year.

With Carnival’s 50-plus year heritage, TBWA\Chiat\Day New York saw a great opportunity to take an iconic brand and help create a successful platform that would propel its next 50 years.

“It’s a dream opportunity for a partner. Great work comes from great partnerships, and I think Amy has a proven reputation of being exactly that,” Emily Wilcox, CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, told ADWEEK.

Wilcox added that the pitch, which featured multiple agencies, was collaborative throughout, with plenty of feedback given so TBWA could refine its pitch.

Over 50 years of cruising 

Carnival helped start the cruise marketing push, launching the first-ever national advertising campaign 40 years ago with Kathie Lee Gifford singing about the joys of cruising.

The brand, which claims to sail more guests than any other cruise line, most recently worked with Anomaly, which used “Fun” as a theme in ads featuring Shaquille O’Neal as the brand’s CFO (chief fun officer). O’Neal will apparently continue being a brand ambassador, and Gifford is still on board with Carnival.

Now, the iconic brand is looking to anchor its place in culture for the next 50 years, with the goal of speaking to new and current customers. 

“We’ve been having lots of conversations about what’s next for the brand, and the Carnival brand is just over 50 years old now. After 50 years of being leader, you want to make sure we’re thinking about what’s next and writing the next chapter,” said Martin Ziegenfuss, who, before coming to Carnival, was svp of global enterprise and brand marketing for Hilton Worldwide, and before that was with Choice Hotels.

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