Cruise Ads: Name Those Tunes

Catchy music can make or break a television commercial for me. If a favorite--or even familiar--song is featured, it's more than likely to capture my attention. Carnival ads featuring "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" never failed to make me feel like dancing.

Now that "Wave Season" is upon us, two cruise lines are riding the crest with new ad campaigns, including television commercials that began running yesterday. Carnival has introduced three, each with a different theme. Not to be out-done, Norwegian Cruise Line has launched a series of six. While I haven't seen the NCL ads yet, I have seen a sample of Carnival's.

You can also preview one of the 30-second television spots at Carnival's web site (just click the player to start the video). It's a low-key, heartwarming family-focused scenario appropriately backed by the lyrics of Queen, "oooh, you make me live," from the classic You're My Best Friend. While the music sounded vaguely familiar, I have to admit that I'd never heard of Queen. There are two more commercials I haven't seen yet, so I'm reserving judgment. I didn't want to jump up and dance, but the expression on the parents' faces when their little girl pets a dolphin is enough to make me want to recreate the experience with my own daughter. That is, if I had a daughter, I'd really want to share that feeling of wonder with her.

Carnival is also rolling out a print advertising campaign and I applaud them for featuring photos shot onboard one of the line's older Fantasy-class vessels. The "Consider it an adult moment..." advertisement illustrates the new all-adults-only "Serenity" deck beautifully and demonstrates confidence in the entire "Fun Ship" fleet.

Cruise Diva will be aboard Carnival Imagination later this month to give the Serenity deck and other "Evolutions of Fun" enhancements a try. I'll be blogging from on board, so you can sail along with me.