OREANDA-NEWS. Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world's largest leisure travel company, today announced it is partnering with PHD, a leading Omnicom advertising agency, to handle all media planning and buying for seven of its 10 global cruise brands in North America and the United Kingdom.

Following an extensive agency review and media buying analysis, Carnival Corporation is consolidating from six agencies to a single firm, awarding PHD its media planning and buying business based on the firm's global expertise, capabilities and purchasing power for North America and the UK.

PHD will handle media planning and buying responsibilities for Carnival Cruise Line, Fathom, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, P&O Cruises UK and Cunard Line in the North America and UK markets. PHD currently supports media planning and buying for Carnival Cruise Line and Cunard Line.

The move leverages Carnival Corporation's scale as the world's largest cruise company to improve the strategic coordination of media buying across multiple brands in two of the world's largest regions for cruise vacations. It is expected to help generate awareness and drive increased demand for cruising, while creating multi-million dollar savings in media costs. In 2015, Carnival Corporation's six brands in the two regions combined for $116 million in media spend.

"We are excited to partner with the team at PHD across our leading portfolio of cruise brands in North America and in the UK," said Josh Leibowitz, chief strategy officer for Carnival Corporation. "Bringing together our brands to work with a world class agency like PHD enables us to further enhance our digital and traditional media strategies to grow demand for cruising as the world's best vacation choice."

Leibowitz added: "As part of our ongoing efforts to leverage our scale across 10 global cruise brands, this agreement enables our brands to work together in a completely new way. We appreciate everyone on our collective teams for all the hard work that made this possible."

PHD will use its significant purchasing power, sophisticated research resources and advanced business intelligence tools to provide Carnival Corporation strategic expertise and support for its marketing programs. PHD will work closely with the company and its brands on a framework that enables strategic coordination for media buying across multiple brands and regions, which will create efficiencies in media spending and help unlock demand for cruise vacations.