Carnival's Marketing Engine Goes Full Throttle: Can it Boost Demand?

Carnival Corporation & plc CCL is making an aggressive pivot toward high-impact marketing to drive bookings amid minimal capacity growth. With no new ship deliveries in 2026 and only three scheduled over the next four years, the cruise giant is turning to brand storytelling and experiential promotions to boost momentum and yield.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, Carnival executed one of its expansive marketing pushes to date during Wave season. Its flagship Carnival Cruise Line brand launched splashy campaigns tied to cultural tentpoles like the Oscars and the Super Bowl. These efforts featured brand ambassador Shaquille O’Neal and celebrity chefs Guy Fieri and Emeril Lagasse, generating more than 5 billion media impressions. Costa Cruises amplified its exposure in Italy through a live performance on Costa Toscana during the Sanremo Music Festival, while AIDA Cruises continued its AIDA Evolution program by revamping AIDAdiva with upgraded onboard experiences.

These campaigns are translating into results. The company reported historically high pricing across all core programs and over 80% of 2025 capacity booked by the end of the fiscal first quarter. Booking volumes for 2026 also hit an all-time high. Carnival’s strong marketing execution was instrumental in lifting net yields by 7.3% year over year in the fiscal first quarter.
 
Carnival’s strategic marketing push is enabling pricing discipline and forward-looking demand. With limited fleet expansion and inflationary pressure, the ability to create emotional resonance through brand storytelling could prove to be an asset for the company heading into the back half of the year.

Key Competitors Building Brand Buzz

Royal Caribbean Group RCL is also leaning on strong brand positioning, though through a different lens. The company’s marketing flywheel focuses on deepening customer loyalty via app adoption, personalization, and its cross-brand loyalty ecosystem. New ships like Star of the Seas and Celebrity Xcel are generating record demand, and direct-to-consumer bookings are surging. In the first quarter of 2025, Royal Caribbean’s WAVE season was the best in company history, with onboard spending and pre-cruise purchases at all-time highs. Royal Caribbean credits its marketing ecosystem and brand-led ship innovation for driving strong pricing and engagement amid macro uncertainty.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. NCLH is taking a more targeted approach. Its recent campaigns have revolved around experiential upgrades, like the Aqua slide coaster on the newly launched Norwegian Aqua, which garnered over 270 million views across social platforms. Norwegian Cruise also announced significant enhancements to Great Stirrup Cay, including resort-style pools and exclusive clubs, as well as a revamped NCL app to drive pre-cruise revenue. While its broader media exposure remains lower than Carnival’s, Norwegian Cruise is doubling down on experiential marketing to foster brand differentiation and premium pricing.

CCL’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of Carnival have gained 26.7% in the past three months compared with the industry’s growth of 12.7%.

From a valuation standpoint, CCL trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 12.24X, significantly below the industry’s average of 18.57X.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CCL’s fiscal 2025 and 2026 earnings implies a year-over-year uptick of 30.3% and 12.8%, respectively. The EPS estimates for fiscal 2025 have remained unchanged in the past 30 days.

CCL stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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