Europe is slated to host a record number of cruise ships and passengers this year, even as the Caribbean suffers from weak prices amid a glut of capacity. Indeed, the 2,974-passenger Carnival Freedom sailed on her maiden voyage from Venice on Monday with plans to spend her splashy first season plying the Mediterranean instead of the Caribbean. Not so many years ago, Europe was largely relegated to the tired, older cruise vessels, no longer hot enough for the Caribbean. This year's build-up in Europe comes on top of a 12% increase in berths there last year. "Europe has great …

Twenty-one international sports stars--including David Beckham, the English soccer player, Gilbert Arenas, the U.S. basketball player, and Jonah Lomu, the New Zealand rugby player--discuss how they overcame adversity in their lives in a new Adidas global TV campaign. Film locales include Shanghai, Madrid and Sao Paulo. The ads show the athletes drawing themselves in pivotal situations. In Beckham's case, he shows how he got death threats after being ejected from a World Cup game in 1998. His voiceover talks about how it took scoring a goal against Greece in 2002 for all the sportswriters to stand up and cheer …

Gap interim CEO Robert Fisher says the company "almost tried to institutionalize creativity" and promises to rely less on focus groups and consumer research in his bid to turn around the ailing retailer. Fisher says he will examine whether the Gap has too many management layers at HQ. He also says the apparel retailer will return more decision-making power to the leaders of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic brands. Fisher also has to grapple with long-standing problems at the brands, which are now so large they can't be too trendy -- or they might not appeal …

Pinnacle Foods hopes to reverse 30 years of brand erosion for its Lenders bagels by throwing $30 million in marketing support behind the line. New packaging will make a nostalgia play, as will a radio campaign asking listeners to "Imagine you're a bagel. Wouldn't you rather be a Lender's bagel?" A whole wheat/whole grain muffin line set for this July will give the frozen bagel line a healthier spin. The marketing activity comes as sales for the line are down 9.8% to $54.8 million, while fresh bagels are stable with sales up 1.3% to $441 million for the year …

In addition to sponsoring sports, athletes and teams like the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer, the Red Bull company has created new sports, ostensibly to sell more energy drinks. One of them--Crashed Ice--is a cross between hockey and snowboard, in which three racers at a time, dressed in hockey equipment, whip down what looks like a large bobsled run. Crashed Ice was conceived almost 10 years ago when executives at Red Bull's Austrian headquarters heard a pitch for a new sport based on downhill in-line skating. "The next generation of sports fans are participatory in nature," says David …

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC will pay for the production of a pilot for a show about a trio of prehistoric characters--based on Geico's cavemen characters--who battle prejudice in modern-day Atlanta. There's no script or cast yet, but plans call for the comedy to be titled "Cavemen." The characters have achieved celebrity status, thanks, in part, to Geico's enormous ad budget. More recently, the caveman has been showing up outside ads. Eight days ago, an actor dressed as a caveman appeared at the Ocars. Last month, a caveman played golf with football analyst Phil Simms during his Super Bowl …

The tally raised worldwide for the celebrity-splashed Red marketing campaign to raise AIDS awareness is $18 million in its first year, below some expectations. The collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola for the Red campaign has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million. The disproportionate ratio between the marketing outlay and the money raised is drawing concern among nonprofit watchdogs, cause-marketing experts and even executives in the ad business. It threatens to spur a backlash, not just against the Red campaign--which set out to change the cause-marketing model by allowing partners to profit from …

Denis Hennequin, in charge of all of McDonald's restaurants in Europe, has a three-pronged strategy: Improve the experience of customers and employees; make sure restaurants adapt to local communities; and be more transparent about how McDonald's does business. "I'm changing the story," Hennequin says. "We've got to be loyal to our roots, we have to be affordable, we have to be convenient ... but we have to add new dimensions." These dimensions include putting iPods in restaurants in France, so people can sit and listen to music, making better coffee from beans grown ethically and introducing a "McPassport," …

Perry Ellis International is finally getting the attention of Wall Street investors. Chairman and CEO George Feldenkreis pins its newfound success on its focus on brands, ranging from namesake Perry Ellis to Original Penguin, Havanera, Cubavera, Jantzen, Savane, Ping, Pro Player, John Henry, PGA Tour and JAG. All told, the company's portfolio includes 27 national brands, with an estimated $180 million investment. The Perry Ellis brand has gotten a makeover. The merchandise is now geared toward a 32- or 33-year-old man who is interested in fashion, but doesn't like to change. Gone are the fitted shirts in bright pink …

For contemporaneous coverage, comments and observations of the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Media Conference & Trade Show in Las Vegas this week, periodically click on this special edition of MediaPost Raw.