Carnival Breaks Fourth Wall, Invites Aussies to ‘Play Away’ in Platform Designed to Last Decades

Carnival has launched a new local brand platform -- its first since acquiring P&O last year -- to debut distinctive brand assets the business can use for decades, re-establish ‘fun’ as its essence, and tempt Aussies to use a long weekend break to take their first cruise.

‘Play Away’ is comprised of three 15” TVCs, a range of OOH executions, and a suite of radio spots introducing three characters: Jimmy, who’s dancing with the waiter at dinner; Sonya, relaxing in a deck-chair; and the Kaleilei family, ‘stuck’ in paradise. Each is set to a dry voiceover, breaks the fourth wall, prioritises humour and rhyme, and ends with a honking cruise horn.

“The work is quite distinct. I couldn't imagine any other competitor using it,” senior marketing manager Nicole Bradbury told LBB of the campaign led by Innocean.

Carnival initially engaged Innocean on a small project at the start of last year. When the agency pitched for that work, each team member dressed as a different Carnival guest -- one wore a bath robe, another an 80s outfit. “They weren’t afraid to put themselves on the line, be a little bit silly,” Nicole recalled.

“They were a bit of a wildcard, to be honest. We hadn't worked with Innocean before, but when they came into the office, we were blown away in terms of the super strong strategy.

“We were really, really impressed. We got a couple of runs on the board and then when it came time for a new integrated campaign, we knew that they were the right partner to work with. A pitch process can only give you so much information and I think it's better to test and learn, see how you go with an agency with a small project, and then once you're confident, get them onto something bigger.”

Senior strategist Jack Cornwell said the original brief was to evolve the two-year-old ‘100% Holiday’ platform. But with a new global platform rolling out in November, ‘Carnival is Calling’, he “pushed back and encouraged them to move closer to the global positioning.” The old brand platform felt “category indistinct”, and Jack believed “it would be a serious misstep to continue denying their heritage in fun.”

Plus, brand tracking data showed the 53-year-old Carnival brand was starting to lose traction in Australians’ memories (despite being the category leader locally and boasting 600,000 Aussie guests each year) and cruise ads were increasingly indistinguishable.

With that in mind, and the insight that life has become “boring and routinised”, a plan formed to use humour and playfulness to position Carnival as the antidote to traffic, emails, and everyday mundanity. Senior copywriter Bella Smith explained, “‘Play Away’ is an invitation to all Australians to play. Not just on holiday, but everywhere, every day. To be a little silly, give something new a go, and make lifelong memories with your people -- even ones you just met.”

The team created a suite of distinctive brand assets (DBAs) early on in the process and was “strict about how to use them,” Jack said. The ambition is for these DBAs to have the potential to last 20 years; “Think, ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers,’” Jack said. “No pressure!”

Nicole added campaign pre-testing showed the DBAs performing “really, really strongly.”

Those DBAs show up across the integrated campaign. The out-of-home executions are bold and simple, “using distinct, eye-catching photography and full-bleed copy” to appear more like an invitation than an ad, and take full advantage of the medium: “less is more.” Contextual billboards near roads, rail, bus shelters, and ferry-wharfs feature different copy.

The radio spots recognise the medium’s ad breaks are “pretty wall-to-wall” and “jammed with messaging and proof points”.

So, “we gave each spot breathing room through clever use of sound design and allowed the audience to imagine themselves in this playful holiday setting”, and kept that honking cruise horn at the end.

The TV executions feature multiple voiceover variations, depending on time of day, seasonal occasions, or specific TV programming. “This not only made our budget go a lot further, but allowed us to speak more directly to our audience during their most mundane moments of the day,” Bella said.

ECD Brendan Willenberg confirmed, “We intentionally took a media-first approach with this campaign. We wanted to feature dynamic creative so each execution had the ability to be retooled to fit with context, platform, time of day, and audience behaviour.”

‘Play Away’ launches at the start of the brand’s first-full year running its expanded fleet (post P&O acquisition) and two months after rolling out its global brand platform, ‘Carnival is Calling’. In the US, that platform launched with a Nick Offerman-fronted campaign.

“The brand essence and the tone needs to be consistent and all about fun, and then you tweak it slightly for your audience and for your market,” Nicole said of how the local work speaks to the global positioning. “That's why understanding culture and understanding people is so important as a marketer.”

Mental availability is the campaign’s top objective. The brand is targeting people who have never cruised before, luring them to “dip their toe in the water” with a short “trial” cruise that is also value-for-money. In a geographically-isolated market like Australia, the short cruise is an excellent long weekend contender, Nicole added.

“It's tough at the moment, economically, for a lot of people. And if you compare the cost of a Carnival cruise to any other type of holiday, it is phenomenal value,” she said.

The brand will launch more ‘Play Away’ executions -- starring new characters -- later this year.

“Maybe those three characters will go on and have a life of their own. We have more coming later in the year. Will it be the next Sonya and Ketut? I'm not sure.”

Ultimately, Nicole said, “I hope it brings joy to people. That's what we want to do as marketers. I want them to have a positive reaction and I want them to remember it.”