ECAL Launches Free Product with Branded Offers
Another Calendar Marketing Innovation First

Melbourne (Australia) – 12th December 2017 – Aussie-based tech company, ECAL (ecal.com), the world’s leading calendar marketing platform has launched another industry first, a free version product featuring ‘Branded Offers’.

Launched by leading AFL and A-League teams including Hawthorn FC, Geelong Cats, Gold Coast Suns and Adelaide United FC, ECAL’s free version ‘sync to calendar’ technology keeps fans up-to-date with the latest games and events, with access to amazing competitions and great offers from well-known brands.

How does it work?

In partnership with Melbourne-based ‘ad tech’ company Opentop, ECAL has successfully integrated their ‘post-transaction advertising platform’ into the ‘success’ flow of the ECAL widget experience.

Following a successful ‘sync to calendar’ with ECAL, the user can now also enter an amazing free prize competition, managed by Opentop. The user can also access a series of ‘opt-in’ offers from leading brands in travel, retail, insurance, utilities and more.

Importantly, no offers or advertising of any sort is displayed anywhere else, especially not the calendar, a space ECAL holds sacred.

What competitions and what Branded Offers?

High value competitions are run across the network. Currently, users have the chance to win $10,000 cash. Other competitions include the chance to win a trip to New York, a tropical holiday, or even a new car.

Branded Offers currently include 10% off at Peter Jackson, 10% off a holiday cruise from Royal Caribbean International, $20 hotel voucher from Travel Online, Ladbrokes betting bonus, plus discounts from Kogan and Foxtel. Opentop’s post-transaction advertising platform analyses the user’s demographic, location, time of day, plus millions of layers of behavioral data, to present the most relevant offers to each user.

Participation in any of the Branded Offers is completely voluntary and not a condition of entry for the free prize competition,

Why a free version?

ECAL Founder & CEO, Patrick Barrett explains: “We are responding to a segment of the business market that want to deploy our ‘sync to calendar’ technology for free, and are happy to forgo access to certain features and customer data that the paid enterprise product provides.”

“The challenge for us as a business was to develop a free product that was viable, whilst protecting the intimacy and security of our end-users’ personal calendar, which for us is an entirely sacred space.”

“The teams at ECAL and Opentop collaborated to develop an awesome product that doesn’t impact on the core ‘sync to calendar’ experience, and returns the revenue we need for it to be viable.”

The future for ECAL’s Branded Offers looks bright. As Mr. Barrett explains, “With a successful licence-based model already in play, and now an alternative free model, we can be ultimately more flexible for clients that want to use ECAL. For clients with significant audience networks, we can also work in close partnership with them to provide new revenue sharing opportunities, which is a major business advantage.”

Aaron Woolf, CEO of Opentop added “this partnership is fantastic for all involved – the customers get fantastic offers from the world’s leading brands, the calendar partner gets access to the fantastic ECAL platform at no cost, and the advertisers generate some incredible consumer engagement with their brand! Everyone wins!”

About ECAL

ECAL, founded by technology entrepreneur Patrick Barrett in 2010, is the world’s first purpose-built calendar marketing platform delivering ‘rich’ communications to the personal calendars of users.

ECAL’s ‘sync to calendar’ technology is used by hundreds of major brands globally, across sports, ticketing, media, banking and payments.

ECAL is an important communications, marketing and data feature for the likes of AFL, Cricket Australia, NBL, NRL, Fox Sports, The Australian Ballet National Australia Bank, Optus (Australia), Premier League, Arsenal FC, Tottenham FC (UK), Barclaycard, Paciolan, Major League Soccer, NFL / NBA / NHL teams, College and Olympic sports (US).

ECAL is globally headquartered in Melbourne with US headquarters in Los Angeles.

Contact:
Patrick Barrett
Founder & CEO | ECAL
E: Patrick@ecal.com | M: +61 (0)411 650 445

The English Football Association (The FA) is leaning on ECAL’s calendar communications to spread Christmas joy, and to promote it’s 2017 England Christmas Gift Pack!

The much-anticipated Gift Pack is an amazing present idea for any English football fan, and includes tickets to England’s International Friendly against Italy in March 2018, a digitally signed Christmas card from a selection of England players, and a chance to win a signed England shirt. Additionally, 500 lucky fans will also receive a hand-signed Christmas card.

The England Christmas Gift Pack is available to purchase from just £20 for adults and £10 for juniors. ECAL users have direct access to purchase this amazing gift in time for Christmas, straight from their personal calendar.

Could Christmas shopping be any easier?!

ECAL is proud to be the official calendar marketing service provider of The FA, Premier League and various teams including Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Leicester City, Aston Villa, Newcastle United amongst others.

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Footy is back, and the countdown to the new season has begun!

Today, the AFL released its 2018 season fixture. As the official calendar technology provider across the AFL, ECAL lets you sync the official team fixture and club events straight to your personal calendar.

Choose your favourite team to get started: Bombers, Blues, Bulldogs, Cats, Crows, Demons, Eagles, Giants, Hawks, Kangaroos, Lions, Magpies, SaintsSuns, Swans and Tigers.

Football fans will never miss a moment of the action with match details updated dynamically throughout the season, with direct access to Membership, Tickets, Latest News, Shop, Social Media and TV Broadcast info at your fingertips.

The 2018 AFL Premiership season kicks off with the traditional clash between reigning premier Richmond and a rising Carlton on Thursday 22nd March.

Footy is not far away, so be prepared and sync your team fixture to calendar now. Thanks to ECAL 🙂

Women’s footy fans, get excited! The AFLW has released its fixture for the 2018 season.

Fans of the Blues, Bulldogs, Crows, Demons, Giants, Lions and Magpies can sync the team schedule and events straight to their calendar first. Please check your favourite team site for updates as they happen!

Football lovers will never miss a moment with match details updated dynamically throughout the season, with direct access to Membership, Latest News, Online Shops, Social Engagement and TV Broadcast info.

History will be made when the Fremantle Dockers clash with Collingwood at Western Australia’s new state-of-the-art Perth Stadium on Saturday, February 10. The 2018 competition will visit all parts of the Country, Collingwood playing the Demons in Alice Springs, Western Bulldogs in Moe (Regional Victoria) and Lions in Moreton Bay (Queensland).

The Premiership will open with traditional rivals Carlton and Collingwood meeting at Ikon Park under lights on Friday February 2nd. A record crowd of 24,000 attended the first ever AFWL match, will there be another lock-out in 2018!

Football is back, so don’t miss a moment and sync the fixture to your calendar now.

Melbourne City FC is counting down the days to the start of the 2017/18 W-League season, promoting its ‘Add to Calendar’ service on its social channels ahead of the opening round of the new season this weekend.

City FC fans will be kept up-to-date with the latest game details, broadcast information and direct access to Buy Tickets, Match Centre, Online Shop and more throughout the season.

The defending champions have reinforced its Championship-winning Westfield W-League side with the signing of Matildas defender Alanna Kennedy, Japanese international Yukari Kinga and United States youth international Ashley Hatch.

City FC season kicks off with a blockbuster 2017 Grand Final replay against Perth Glory at nib Stadium in Perth before returning to Melbourne for a huge Melbourne Derby in Round 2 at AAMI Park.

Follow City FC throughout the W League and A-League Season and stay up-to-date and connected via the calendar, all thanks to ECAL!

Rugby League fans, get excited! The NRL has released its schedule for the 2018 season.

Fans of the Storm, Eels, Broncos, Panthers, Cowboys and Warriors can sync the team schedule and events straight to their calendar first. Please check your favourite team site for updates as they happen!

League lovers will never miss a moment with match details updated dynamically throughout the season, with direct access to Ticketing, Membership, Latest News, Online Shops, Social Engagement and TV Broadcast info.

The NRL will stage a record number of double headers and regional matches in 2018 as well as more Sunday blockbusters in a new look season schedule. There will also be a standalone weekend for State of Origin II.

The Premiership will open with a clash between St George Illawarra and Brisbane Broncos at UOW Jubilee Stadium on Thursday, March 8.

Let the ECAL team know if your team is lagging behind the others, and we’ll chase them up! It promises to be a big season of rugby league ahead!

The Premier League played host to ECAL Founder & CEO, Patrick Barrett and Client Services Director, Cassandra Calleja at the Emirates Stadium on Monday night (25th Sept 2017), for the match between Arsenal and West Bromwich Albion.

It was also a case of ‘Football Meets Football’ (big time!), with Barrett taking the opportunity to introduce the touring NFL team New Orleans Saints to Arsenal, for a media opportunity like no other.

In town for their weekend clash against the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium, 10 Saints stars led by Drew Brees, Mark Ingram and Cam Jordan, were treated to a night out they’ll never forget, thanks to Arsenal and ECAL.

With not even a day’s notice, the New Orleans Saints players were scheduled in for a pre-match pitch walk, media interviews, photo opportunities, shirt presentation and exclusive seating.

The two leading ‘football’ organisations worked together to create huge media value, with the story picked up by major media publishers across the US and UK, including ESPN, Fox, NBC Sports, Yahoo!, The Sun, The Guardian, The Mirror, Daily Mail and others.

For the Saints, this was the perfect promotional lead-in to their upcoming game on the weekend. For Arsenal, well, if there are any Saints or NFL fans that don’t yet have a Premier League team, they may have one now!

The Arsenal social media team produced a video from the footage and released this via Facebook  (541k views), with cross-posting provided to the Saints. A longer video feature was also quickly produced for Arsenal TV, and aired across their affiliates globally.

There was also some amazing ‘user generated content’ by the players themselves. The first goal by Alexandre Lacazette was sensationally captured by Drew Brees on his mobile and posted to Instagram. It’s an awesome moment, and has had more than 60k views. There’s also some cool content from Mark Ingram and the Saints.

ECAL Founder & CEO, Patrick Barrett said “I think this is a great example of how our company is unlike any regular technology vendor. As a team, we pride ourselves in going above and beyond for the success of our partner clients, and I think when you engage in at this level, sometimes, magic happens. Kudos to the unbelievable professionalism of Arsenal. What they were able to achieve as an organisational team, on the day of a game, was pretty damn impressive.”

For the record, Arsenal defeated West Brom 2-0 with Alexandre Lacazette scoring a brace. Arsenal currently sit seventh on the Premier League table.

You can follow your Premier League team throughout the 17/18 season directly from your personal calendar via the official Premier League ‘Add to Calendar’ service, proudly powered by ECAL.

For Arsenal fans, visit Arsenal’s dedicated ECAL digital calendar service for even more great content including First Team Fixtures, Ladies Fixtures, Academy Fixture and Ticket On-sale Dates.

Australia’s Nathan Walker created history on Saturday October 7th by being the first-ever Aussie professional hockey player to play in the NHL for the Washington Capitals.

Born in Wales but having lived in Australia since the age of two (so naturally we claim him!), Walker scored in his first-ever NHL appearance with 1:55 remaining in the second period, as the Capitals beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1.

Capitals and Walker fans can stay up-to-date with the season schedule, thanks to ECAL. The Capitals ‘add to calendar‘ service will sync all games to your personal digital calendar, with handy alerts, game details and links to Tickets, Latest News, Shop and more.

You can also check out Nathan Walker’s goal here.

We’re wrapped to see Nathan become a true Aussie trailblazer, especially for the Caps!

The Australian Ballet has launched its 2018 season calendar with some exciting new features – powered by ECAL, the world’s leading calendar marketing platform.

Launched in April 2017, ECAL’s ‘Add to Calendar’ live and dynamic enterprise technology has been successful in enabling Australian Ballet to better service season ticket holders, acquire new customers and drive ticket sales for the culturally curious.

The 2018 season calendar launch will engage ballet enthusiasts like never before.

  • For existing ECAL users, the 2018 Season dates will automatically sync into their calendar
  • For ticket buyers, they can now easily add all the performances they’ve just purchased straight to calendar with a click.

Ballet enthusiasts will never miss a moment, thanks to ECAL and the amazing team at Australian Ballet.

SANZAAR has announced the match schedule for the revamped 2018 Super Rugby tournament, powered by ECAL.

The 15-team three-conference format competitions sees each team play 16 conference matches, with eight matches within their own conference home and away, then four matches against teams from each of the other two conferences. The finals will comprise an eight team, seven match series.

The 2018 season marks the return of home and away local derbies, adding extra theatre to the race to the top of what will hopefully be an improved Australian Conference. Japanese franchise the Sunwolves have joined the conference and will play alongside the ACT Brumbies, Melbourne Rebels, Queensland Reds and NSW Waratahs.

ECAL’s ‘Add to Calendar’ button on the 2018 Super Rugby fixtures page will allow fans across the globe to sync the complete tournament schedule or favourite team(s) straight to their personal calendar program on mobile or desktop.

The 2018 Super Rugby tournament starts on Saturday 17 February when the South African Conference kicks-off. The Australian and New Zealand Conferences will kick-off a week later when the defending champions the Crusaders open the defence of their title at home against the Chiefs.