Carnival Corp. to debut its first multi-brand Super Bowl commercial

The commercials in the new multi-brand strategy were created by BBDO Atlanta, part of BBDO Worldwide, which collaborated with Academy Award-winning cinematographer and Hollywood director Wally Pfister, known for 'Transcendence,' 'Inception' and 'The Dark Knight' trilogy.

The Super Bowl commercial will be a 60-second spot selected from four full-scale production ads, sourced from the 'World’s Leading Cruise Lines Marketing Challenge' that gives consumers across North America the chance to provide Carnival Corp. with input on its new advertising creative. Hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, this crowdsourcing contest lets consumers 'join the company’s marketing team' and vote for their favorite creative concept with a chance to win a grand prize of a yearly cruise for life.

Carnival Corp. also announced Thursday that it has narrowed the field of original creative concepts in the Marketing Challenge to four semi-finalists based in part on consumer voting and input, and all four concepts are now in full production under BBDO Atlanta and Pfister’s direction. The final elimination round kicking off now will narrow the field to two finalists, giving consumers a chance to provide input on the final two concepts. One will be the featured Super Bowl commercial.

'There is no bigger stage than the Super Bowl for telling our story, and we’re excited about the opportunity to start a new dialogue with consumers about cruising and use their input in helping us pick the creative concepts,' Carnival Corp. ceo Arnold Donald said.

He added that Carnival's goal is to 'convince those who have never cruised to give us a chance to show them why over 10 million people a year sail on one of our nine brands and why so many of our guests cannot wait to sail with us again.'

The four semi-finalists among the commercials are 'Cruise Virgin' (these people tell consumers about their first time—which they will never forget), 'Message in a Bottle' (fairytale moments of cruising from each of Carnival's nine brands are in a message in a bottle), 'Getaway' (cruising gives the chance to get away from all the stresses of life) and 'Mystery Spot' (this idea contains an undisclosed surprise that's as big as the ocean).

The spots are at WorldsLeadingCruiseLines.com.