NEW CONTEST POSITIONS EXCITE.CA AS THE PLACE TO BE
By Adnews Staff
Toronto-based Excite.ca broke a recruitment campaign June 1 featuring the launch of its first online contest called "Pigs Can Fly." Targeting Canadian online users, the contest is designed to position Excite.ca as an online property where "anything can happen." Online and offline advertising, from Toronto-based BBDO Canada and BBDO Interactive, is expected to drive traffic to the Excite.ca Web site where users can register and be entered into the contest. New users as well as Canadians using the U.S. Excite.com portal are being targeted in the campaign. The "Pigs Can Fly" contest runs until June 30. Excite Canada, which launched its Canadian Web portal March 1, has partnered with the U.S.-based online marketing company Matchlogic in targeting Canadians surfing U.S.-based sites. Matchlogic will also promote the contest to its Canadian database of over 200,000 "opt in" e-mail addresses. Excite.ca is working with Excite.com to create banner ads and a pop-up window to target Canadians surfing the U.S. site. The Excite.ca site itself will be promoting the contest to current users using banner ads and text links to the contest Web site. Offline advertising includes three 30-second radio spots running in the Ontario and Vancouver markets and tagging existing Excite.ca print ads in Canadian magazines such as Macleans and Canadian Business.