Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.
I served as strategy lead for this work, working with the agency and client team to ensure the experience we created would meet (and exceed) Guest and business needs while also delivering a differentiated brand experience. This work took place in the context of a broader body of work for Carnival Cruise Line focused on digital experience and marketing.
Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?
It took more than a century for the first billion photos to be taken. Today, it takes less than three days for a billion photos to be posted on Facebook alone. In this age of photo overload, curating the best images is more important than ever. And now that virtually everyone on a ship is carrying a camera, our challenge became how to integrate the onboard pros into a cruiser’s photo world. That’s why our goal became making the photo experience as seamless and fun as possible for guests. Our vision was to move Carnival’s photography business from print to digital, by making the process more exciting for guests. We did this by changing the way guests search and buy vacation images. Because once photos were fun to search for and easier to access, there was clearly more inspiration to purchase. The New Pixels Gallery takes the photo experience off the wall and spreads it throughout the guest experience. Now, guests can access their photos anywhere and anytime, from their mobile devices, in room TVs, or in the main interactive gallery space. Our reimagined gallery is filled with touchscreen photo towers, tabletop tablets, and a host of playful, interactive elements which encourage participation. Now, rather than having to walk through an entire ship’s physical photos, guests can access only those images that matter to them. Using a combination of facial recognition and cruiser ID numbers, photos are automatically grouped together, guests simply enter their code on a device and can easily retrieve photos for purchase on the spot.
Tell us about the creative brief, what did it ask?
Carnival is always seeking innovative ideas to enable “fun,” which is the brand’s DNA. With Pixels, Carnival’s on-ship professional photo service and gallery, we sought to reimagine the gallery space and entire photo experience without undermining the hard-working retail side of the legacy “analog” photo business. The ask: Breathe new life into the fun of a gallery experience that Carnival Guests actively seek out while also meeting the functional needs of the photo business and ship operations.
Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?
A Carnival cruise presents Guests with both quantity and quality as the selfie-stick and on-ship photographer fight for relevance as “tools” for capturing vacation memories. A generational shift has relegated Mom to the typical buyer of quality photos, finding value in a nice family picture from the cruise to put on next year’s holiday card. Meanwhile, those who don’t pose to get quality only a pro can achieve might go an entire cruise without stepping foot inside a Pixels Gallery. We wanted to change all this to create an experience equally appealing to those ages seven to 77. In the age of photo overload, the question is no longer, “Is this picture worth taking?” Now it’s, “Is this picture worth finding and paying for?”
What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development.
For this work, we had to align the creative vision, technology needs and business requirements – all within a predetermined retail footprint (literally down to the cubic square inch) and a final build-out that occurred during a transatlantic sailing.