• by Tanya Gazdik , December 16, 2010

Carnival Cruise Lines wants revelers in Times Square on New Year's Eve to think about getting out of the cold.

The Miami-based company is the official confetti sponsor of the 2011 celebration, which is expected to attract more than a million celebrants.

Carnival will also engage the crowd through billboard advertisements and a text-to-win cruise giveaway. The cruise line is promoting the sponsorship on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Carnival bought digital billboard ads in Times Square last year, but has never done anything of this magnitude there. The opportunity was brought to them through their PR agency, Fleishman-Hillard NYC.

At the stroke of midnight, a ton of colorful Carnival Confetti, hand-tossed by approximately 100 "confetti dispersal engineers," including a number of Carnival employees, will fill the New York City skyline.

Carnival's Senior Cruise Director John Heald will lead the official confetti "air-worthiness test" in Times Square in late December prior to the big night, and will also lead the New Year's Eve celebrants in a practice countdown earlier in the evening on Dec. 31, complete with 500 pounds of Carnival-colored red, white and blue confetti, the first confetti drop of the New Year's Eve 2011 party.

Sponsoring the celebration is a way to reinforce the fun Carnival guests experience and to kick off the New Year for the brand, says Jim Berra, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Carnival Cruise Lines.

"Our brand will not only reach tens of thousands of people coming through the Times Square Visitors Center, but we will be in front of the one million revelers in Times Square multiple times throughout the evening on New Year's Eve," Berra tells Marketing Daily . "This sponsorship is a great opportunity to engage a huge number of people with the Carnival brand during what is a once-in-a lifetime celebratory experience for so many people."

At the Carnival Confetti New Year's Eve Wishing Wall at the Times Square Visitor's Center, visitors are invited to share their dreams for the coming year on colorful slips of paper that will be added to the ton of confetti. Those unable to visit the Wishing Wall, but who would still like to have their wish included in the Carnival Confetti, can visit Carnival's Facebook page.

The sponsorship is "an interesting marketing opportunity" for Carnival, says Henry H. Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst, airline and travel research, Forrester Research.

"First, obviously, it's a huge local market, and there will also be a lot of national coverage," Harteveldt tells Marketing Daily. "So there's visibility through that extension on television and webcams and social media and so on."

Although Carnival specializes in warm weather travel, the association with Times Square is a "logical association" and actually makes a lot of sense, he adds.

"Carnival does like to be associated with fun," Harteveldt says. "And I can see the message: 'Why should the fun stop tomorrow morning -- continue the fun on a Carnival Cruise.' I can also see the opportunity to say 'it's cold here in New York, it's whatever [temperature] it is in the Caribbean or Mexico.' They can certainly play on that."