Good morning. Today, a cruise operator gets record high ticket prices in North America and Europe; contestants pitch their first client on Jimmy Fallon’s new advertising competition show; and Tesla’s IT and AI infrastructure chief takes on sales and customer service, too.

Juiced-up marketing is helping Carnival Corp. command record-high prices in North America and Europe, even at a time of economic uncertainty, Megan Graham reports for CMO Today.

The cruise operator has further opportunity to increase demand by investing in the beach destinations that its ships visit and stepping up its marketing around them, CEO Josh Weinstein said on a call to discuss Carnival’s latest quarterly report, which included higher revenue and profits.

The company plans to begin a new ad campaign just before the next “wave season,” Weinstein said, using industry parlance for the highly competitive period from January through March when cruise lines offer their best rates for the year ahead.

Carnival’s Holland America also said Wednesday that it will have its first float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade next month to promote its cruises in Alaska.

A competition series about advertising with “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon and marketing veteran Bozoma Saint John arrived this week on NBC. Katie Deighton has a micro review for our newsletter readers:

“On Brand With Jimmy Fallon” applies the terminology of advertising to a reality competition. The result is a little confusing, which is not a word I thought I’d use to describe a show with Fallon in the title.

The 10 contestants are told to report to the On Brand Agency, for example, but spend most of the show pitching against one another. Bozoma Saint John spends her time onscreen mentoring the cast members, yet holds the title of agency “CMO.” Dunkin’s real-life marketing leaders take one contestant to task for an inconsistent typeface, but indulge another’s idea-lite stand-up routine involving aliens. The specific budget for promoting Dunkin’s meal deal across 10,000 restaurants? “Millions of dollars.”

Of course, no one tunes in to a reality show to watch hours-long meetings with legal, and the range of contestants who, like Fallon, claim to really love advertising is delightful. The agency features characters including a real estate agent from Florida, a TikToking professor from Tennessee and a honky-tonk dance hall emcee from Texas, all of which come to the competition with at least some background or education in marketing. Most of their pitches aren’t bad by any stretch, and the show at the very least serves as a reminder of the creative talent outside of New York.

As the series goes on, ad-industry viewers may start to feel that a job at the On Brand Agency is actually a pretty desirable gig. When someone gets ejected, they depart in a flurry of hugs instead of a five-minute Teams call with HR. Contestants move their campaigns from idea to launch in what appears to be a matter of hours. And nobody suggests using AI.

Flashback: “On Brand” isn’t the first reality competition about advertising. “The Pitch” pitted real-life agencies against each other for two seasons on AMC, the home of “Mad Men.” One TV critic called it mostly “a cautionary tale to young people considering a career in advertising.” [NYT]

The man in charge of reversing Tesla’s epic sales slump is a career IT executive with little sales experience and an itch to automate even more of the customer experience, Becky Peterson reports.

Raj Jegannathan, who now oversees customer service and North American sales in addition to IT and AI infrastructure, is trying to fix problems created by Tesla’s tech-heavy customer service. Often that means adding AI.

He has introduced new tools such as AI sentiment analysis that escalates customer complaints when they get upset and an AI bill summary that clearly explains service costs to Tesla owners before they speak to a human.

When automation fails, Jegannathan handles complaints himself. After one customer posted on X in September about his trouble getting his Tesla serviced, he responded directly.

“Will get to the bottom of this!” he wrote.

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Meet the Aussie surfer (and Electronic Arts CEO) who parlayed his connections into a $55 billion deal. [WSJ] 

The Los Angeles Dodgers are stuck between Latino fans upset over immigration raids in the city on one hand and the Trump administration and its supporters on the other. [NYT]

GrubHub is running a review for an agency to create a commercial to run in the upcoming Super Bowl. [Ad Age]

Walmart said it will eliminate synthetic dyes from all food products sold under its private brands, which include Marketside, Bettergoods and Great Value. [NBC News] 

Model Ashley Graham’s new plus-size clothes brand went on sale at JCPenney as part of a three-year deal with the retailer. [Glossy] 

Nielsen’s “big data plus panel” TV ratings regime is underway, with new weekly rankings including a chart of all scheduled programming across prime time, daytime and late night. [THR]

Taylor Swift’s album-release “party” film this weekend is her latest gift to movie theater chains. [Variety]