Positioning Strategy · Creative Direction · Princess Cruises^®

The Campaign That Redefined a Brand Voice

A two-phase engagement: first the shoot, then the strategy — and why one informed the other.

ClientPrincess Cruises
Carnival Corporation

ScopeMulti-format production · Positioning strategy · Competitive analysis · Creative direction

RoleDirector, Brand Strategy & Creative
phase lead, both phases

2024 → 2025 Production direction → Positioning strategy → Campaign launch & global rollout

Sapphire Princess at Whittier, from above

The Challenge

Princess has been the leading cruise line in Alaska for over two decades. Five owned Princess Wilderness Lodges. Direct-to-wilderness trains connecting ship to Denali. Exclusive Glacier Bay access. The only cruise line offering the complete Alaska experience: coast and deep interior, seamlessly connected.

Having unmatched product and having a brand that communicates it are different things.

The Audience Insight

By 2024, the category had drifted toward spectacle: wildlife sightings, glacier checklists, activity tallies. No one at scale was owning what Alaska actually does to a person.

Alaska vision deck laid out in isometric perspective: inspiration, hair and makeup, and vintage Americana reference slides

My Role

Two phases. Shoot first. Strategy second.

The deeper, more transformative emotional experience of being in that landscape was unclaimed territory.

Phase 1: Direct a major multi-format content production in Alaska that would become the first full visual expression of the Nowstalgia brand philosophy in a destination context.

Phase 2: Develop the comprehensive brand positioning strategy for Princess's flagship destination, formalizing the competitive whitespace and emotional framework that the shoot had confirmed.

Guests around the lodge fireplace, Denali

Phase 1 · The Shoot

Five Wilderness Lodges. Eighteen land locations. One brand truth.

July 2024. The brief was grounded in Nowstalgia: emotion-centered, experience-forward, cinematic. Not polished and postcard-perfect. Emotionally honest and transportive.

In partnership with Pendleton — whose blankets and outerwear brought a rustic Great-American-road-trip aesthetic — we created a visual world that was neither heritage nostalgia nor modern lifestyle aspiration. It was both, at once.

On a helicopter glacier excursion, we landed on an untouched glacier. More than one member of the cast and crew was brought to tears. That was the human truth of Alaska by Princess, happening in real time.

Production Scale

Alaska 2024 — from raw content to deployed campaign.

16+ TBRaw content

7,500+Final stills

50+Video cuts

5Wilderness Lodges

18Land locations

A traveler with arms wide open in the Alaskan tundra

Phase 2 · The Positioning Strategy

The “who do I want to be” traveler.

What the shoot confirmed became the foundation for the formal positioning strategy. Not the “what to see” traveler — the “who do I want to be” traveler. Someone for whom Alaska is not a destination to complete but a chapter in a life story. Discovery is the emotional territory: awe, wonder, connection, ease, and transformation.

The competitive analysis confirmed the whitespace. The category owned product. Nobody at scale owned transformation as emotional territory. Princess had both the product infrastructure to deliver it and the brand philosophy to frame it.

Watch the work

One brand truth, on air.

“I Love All Of This” · 30s · iSpot top emotional resonance, +6 pt purchase intent

“On A Day Like This” · 90s brand film

What It Delivered

From production to performance.

6M+Organic views, single post

+8.5%Alaska revenue vs plan

+6 ptPurchase intent lift

#1iSpot top emotional resonance

What This Demonstrates

Positioning built from consumer insight, creative direction at multi-format production scale, the discipline to let the experience inform the strategy.

Positioning strategy Consumer insight Multi-format creative direction Content production leadership Partnership management Cross-functional storytelling