Carnival Corporation Announces Grand Prize Winner of Yearly Cruise for Life

MIAMI, Feb. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world's largest travel and leisure company, today announced that Bette Shapiro from Red Bud, Illinois, is the official winner of its World's Leading Cruise Lines Marketing Challenge. Selected randomly from over 115,000 people who participated in the contest, Shapiro's prize is a yearly cruise for life onboard her choice of three of Carnival Corporation's global cruise brands in North America – Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line or Princess Cruises.

Shapiro won the contest by participating in Carnival Corporation's recent marketing challenge that gave consumers across North America the chance to provide input on the company's new TV advertising concepts, one of which debuted on NBC-TV's broadcast of the Super Bowl on February 1.  Hosted by comedian and actor Cedric the Entertainer, the interactive crowdsourcing contest let people "join the company's marketing team" and vote for their favorite of four potential TV commercials to be used throughout 2015 with a chance to win the grand prize.

Carnival Corporation also announced today that Sherry Laemmle, a realtor from Bella Vista, Arkansas, will receive 100 days of free cruising as the official winner of its #LoveCruising Twitter contest that asked consumers to tweet about why they love the cruise experience.

Launched as part of the company's 2015 marketing initiative to grow awareness and demand for cruising, the Twitter contest generated thousands of entries from people who eagerly expressed their passions for cruising. This included one of Laemmle's tweets that read "@CarnivalPLC no place else we'd rather be as a family! #LoveCruising" and featured a family photo in front of the Carnival Cruise Line ship Carnival Elation, which sails out of the Port of New Orleans.

Additionally, Carnival Corporation gave away a free cruise to Richard Vronman from Escondido, California, and Carolyn Benson from Cape Coral, Florida, as part of a contest rewarding select lucky guests-to-be who have used the company's popular new "CRUISE-A-NALITY" tool. The tool helps people decide what type of cruise vacation and brand experience is right for them based on a series of personality-focused questions that generate a cruise "persona" for all types of travelers.

"We are excited to give the grand prize of cruising for life to Bette, and we are thrilled that more than 115,000 consumers chimed in over the past 10 weeks to provide valuable input on our advertising and marketing messages that will be used throughout 2015," said Ken Jones, vice president of group marketing and insights for Carnival Corporation. "We were able to hear both from avid cruisers and also those who have never cruised to see what types of messages resonated with them in telling the story of cruising. The feedback directly from consumers is extremely helpful to us as we look to generate broader awareness of why cruising is a great vacation option, at a great value, and why people should consider cruising as they make their upcoming vacation plans."

These various contests and components from Carnival Corporation's new marketing initiative all led to the company's first-ever multi-brand TV commercial, "Come Back to the Sea," a 60-second spot that aired during the Super Bowl – timed with the cruise industry's yearly first-quarter surge in bookings, known as "Wave Season."

The multi-phase marketing initiative targeting new cruisers will build on the success of these initial efforts and continue throughout 2015. Thus far to date, all the various integrated elements of the campaign have driven significant consumer and media engagement including:

• 4,000+ media placements resulting in more than 10 billion media impressions
• 18,000+ social mentions reaching over 80 million in social audience
• 6.46 million views of the commercials on YouTube and other platforms
• More than 115,000 votes in World's Leading Cruise Lines Marketing Challenge

Consumers will continue to be able to use WorldLeadingCruiseLines.com, the online home of the larger marketing initiative, as a hub for new tools, functionally, news and content from the company's nine global cruise brands, as well as information on future developments related to the ongoing 2015 marketing efforts of Carnival Corporation.

About Carnival Corporation
Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest cruise company in the world, with a portfolio of cruise brands in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, comprised of Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (UK).

Together, these brands operate 100 ships totaling 212,000 lower berths with 10 new ships scheduled to be delivered between now and 2018. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded on both the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices. Additional information can be found on www.carnival.com, www.hollandamerica.com, www.princess.com, www.seabourn.com, www.aida.de, www.costacruise.com, www.cunard.com, www.pocruises.com.au and www.pocruises.com.

SOURCE Carnival Corporation & plc

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