ECAL is thrilled to announce the appointment of Shataksh (Shak) Tiwari as its new Chief Technology Officer, based at the company’s Melbourne HQ office.
Mr. Tiwari was most recently Co-Founder and CTO at PulseID, a large-scale mobile communications platform for the financial industry in the APAC region, and prior to that was CTO at Proximiti, a location-based mobile technology that understands consumer behaviour and performs targeted interactions. Prior, he held multiple technology roles at ANZ, one of the ‘big four’ banks in Australia.
ECAL CEO, Patrick Barrett says: “Shak is a highly experienced technologist, with a track-record for delivering smart, scalable, cloud-based SaaS platforms with big-data, security and innovation at the fore.”
“Shak will spearhead the next evolution of the ECAL platform, and ‘CalendarAI’ project, that will deliver optimised communications to calendar, smarter marketing capabilities, and data insights for our enterprise client network. This is exciting times for our company, and reinforces our commitment to push the boundaries in calendar communications and marketing, and deliver amazing outcomes for all our customers, and the millions who rely on our technology to make the most of their day.”
Mr. Tiwari officially started with ECAL at the beginning of April, and has wasted no time in laying the foundations for ECAL’s next-generation products!
3 July 2018
Sydney
TEG, Australasia’s leading Ticketing, Live Entertainment and Data Analytics company, is delighted to announce that the TEG-owned Ticketek has entered a partnership with ECAL, a global leader in calendar marketing and communications technology.
The partnership sees Ticketek, Australasia’s leading ticketing and data-driven marketing company, integrate ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ technology across the breadth of the ticketing experience on its website and email communications. The integration will incorporate everything from event search and discovery, to waitlist and post-purchase scenarios.
With just a couple of clicks, fans can easily add their favourite sports, teams,music and entertainment events directly into their personal calendar for free. Dynamic updates keep fans informed of important ticket on-sale dates, specialticket offers and other specific event details, with direct access to purchase; all from the convenience of their personal calendar.
A recent online survey by ECAL reports that 70% of Australian adults rely on their digital calendar most to manage their life, with over 47% reliant on their mobile calendar. ECAL’s smart calendar marketing system enables events to bypass the inbox and sync directly to a calendar.
TEG CEO Geoff Jones said the new ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature adds to the suite of innovation under the Ticketek Ignition™ program.
“The ECAL platform will enable Ticketek to help our partners engage in exciting new ways, gather invaluable consumer insights, continually learn and refine the calendar communications service to optimise sales,” said Jones.
“This represents a new media channel that is ideally suited to the sports and entertainment market, given that event dates, start times and venue details are the most relevant pieces on information when it comes to the show.
Ticketek Ignition™ opens Ticketek’s internal network and systems to enable multiple ticket purchasing experiences across multiple platforms and partner systems”.
“The new ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is a wonderful initiative by our product and marketing teams, and reinforces our commitment to deliver the most personalised, connected and intelligent ticketing experience for today’s modern, mobile consumers,” said Jones.
Ticketek’s network of partners across sports, venues and entertainment promoters would reap the benefits of enhanced fan engagement and digital marketing.
ECAL Founder and CEO Patrick Barrett said: “ECAL is thrilled to partner with Australasia’s leading ticketing platform in Ticketek, to work hand-in-hand with TEG Analytics to uncover insights into purchase behaviour, and further develop our smart data and ‘decisioning’ platform.”
“We are looking forward to delivering a highly beneficial service for entertainment fans, and more sales and support for sports, venues and promoters, with ECAL’s in-calendar marketing logic typically working at up todouble the normal ‘purchase rate’.”
About Ticketek
Ticketek in Australia and New Zealand is the region’s number one ticketing agency, powered by advanced data-driven marketing and technology solutions. Ticketek has over 150 venue and sport partnerships, issues 28 million tickets per year, and by ticket sales volume Ticketek is in the top three
ticketing companies in the world. Ticketek’s website has 26 million impressions monthly, and is a leader in mobile commerce with over 1.3 million app downloads.
About ECAL
ECAL was founded by technology entrepreneur Patrick Barrett in 2010, and is the world’s first purpose-built ‘calendar marketing’ platform that delivers ‘rich’ and dynamic communications to the personal calendars of users. ECAL services millions of users globally, and works with some of the world’s
best known brands in sports, ticketing, media, conferences, banking, and payments. ECAL is an Australian based company headquartered in Melbourne.
About TEG
TEG is Australasia’s leading Ticketing, Live Entertainment and Data Analytics company. TEG includes Ticketek, TEG Live, TEG Dainty, TEG Analytics, TEG Rewards, Softix, Qudos Bank Arena, Eventopia, Life Like Touring, The Entertainment Store, The Brickman Experience and TEG Asia.
Further information
Kyle Patterson
Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs
TEG
E: kylep@t-e-g.com.au
M: 0412 193 148
O: +61 2 9266 4073
Patrick Barrett
Founder & CEO
ECAL
E: patrick@ecal.com
M: +61 (0)411 650 445
O: +61 (03) 9956 5000
Leading calendar communications platform, ECAL, has released results from its annual survey to find out what people rely on most to manage their daily schedule. One thousand (1000) people were surveyed and were randomly presented four options: “Mobile Calendar (Apple, Android etc.)”, “Desktop Calendar (Apple Calendar, Outlook etc.)”, “Paper (Diary, Journal, Planner etc.)”, and “Other (please specify)” with the ability to add a custom response.
The survey targeted both males and females, aged between 18-64 years from all geographical locations across Australia in a representative sample, to hinder any bias.
Overall, 70% rely on a digital calendar most to manage their life, with 46.7% of respondents (470) relying most on their mobile calendar, and 23.3% of respondents (234) relying on a desktop calendar. Paper calendars such as a diary, journal or planner are preferred by 28.3% of respondents (278), whilst other scheduling tools, representing just 1.8% of the response, include “brain”, “none”, “wife”, “head”, and “memory”, to name just a few!
The same survey was delivered in 2016, with very similar results! In 2016, it was found that 48.2% of respondents (489) relied most on their mobile calendar, 21.7% relied on their desktop calendar (221), and 26.9% on a paper version (263).
Reliance on a digital calendar across the various age groups is relatively consistent, ranging from 70% to 75%, with the exception of 55-64 year-olds (62.8%). The age groups with the highest percentage using digital calendars is 35-44 years and 24-34 years, with a median average of 75% and 74% respectively.
In Deloitte’s 2017 Mobile Consumer Survey, it was found that “smartphone penetration continues to rise, but it’s no longer all about the younger generations”. It is interesting to consider, that in both the 2016 and 2018 ECAL surveys, the age groups with the highest reliance on their mobile calendar are 35-44 year-olds followed by 25-34 year-olds.
There are slight differences amongst genders too, with males (73%) relying on digital calendars more than females (67%). Whilst reliance on a mobile calendar is virtually the same across genders, 32.1% of females rely most on a paper diary, compared with just 24.6% of males. Conversely, males (25.2%) rely on their desktop calendar more than females (21.3%).
ECAL’s own user statistics can reveal that the most popular mobile calendars used over the past 12 months are Apple (25.38% of all users), Google (25.11%) and Windows Live (4.52%). The most popular desktop calendar programs in use are Google (15.44% of all users), Apple (7.77%), Outlook (5.15%) and Windows Live (4.76%).
According to Deloitte, “Australia remains one of the leading global adopters of the smartphone and 88% of Australians now own one”. This report also found that ‘calendar management’ is the third most popular activity on a smartphone, reinforcing the growing reliance on mobile technology in effectively managing your life schedule.
Digital v Paper: Age Group
| Age Group | % Relying on Digital Calendar | % Relying on Paper Calendar |
| 18-24 | 72.35% | 24% |
| 25-34 | 74% | 25.9% |
| 35-44 | 75.24% | 24.8% |
| 45-54 | 70.93% | 29% |
| 55-64 | 62.8% | 36% |
Mobile v Desktop v Paper: Gender
| Gender | % Relying on Mobile Calendar | % Relying on Desktop Calendar | % Relying on Paper Calendar |
| Male | 47.7% | 25.2% | 24.6% |
| Female | 45.7% | 21.3% | 32.1% |
Don’t miss a moment of 2018 NRL season with ECAL
Published by Tanisha Stanton | nrl.com | 26th February, 2018
Get the 2018 Telstra Premiership schedule in your calendar now.
The NRL has partnered with ECAL to create an innovative way for fans to stay up to date with the greatest game of all.
You are now able to sync your favourite club’s draw or the entire Telstra Premiership schedule to your preferred digital calendar.
You can also add the NSW Intrust Super Premiership and Queensland Intrust Super Cup draws, plus the State of Origin series dates.
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
It is often asked, around our office at least…”if it’s not in my calendar, does it even exist at all?” Indeed we hear the same sentiment from ECAL users time and time again.
So, the benefits of communicating to the calendar seem to make great sense, right? Avoid the inbox chaos, deliver your message to users, at the ‘right time’, in the ‘right place’. Makes total sense.
And we know that the modern consumer is increasingly mobile, they are always connected to the internet, they are forever “busy”…so “busy”, and managing life is hard enough!
So how does the modern consumer keep on top of it all? Exactly to what extent do they rely upon their ‘digital calendar’ to manage “life”. Exactly how many manage life via their personal digital calendar, compared to say, keeping a wall calendar, a diary or journal?
Well, we have the answers!
We surveyed 1,000 people (aged 18-64) in each of the US, UK and Australia. The sample was representative of the population.
The Question: What do you rely upon most to manage your daily schedule?
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
Some further insights reveal that:
* In UK, over 62% of 18-14 year-olds use their mobile calendar
* In Australia, 25-34 (59.5%) and 18-24 (57.7%) year-olds are most likely to use their mobile calendar
* In US, 63% of 55-64 year-olds use a digital calendar (mobile or desktop) rather than paper (37%)
* Women use paper diaries / journals / planners more than men
Published: Eric Fisher; Sports Business Journal; 28 September 2015.
Evolving technologies are changing the game in fan engagement.
ECAL: Getting on the calendar.
“Most every platform within digital media from Web pages and email to social media and mobile alerts, has long been mined for marketing purposes, many to the point of user fatigue. But the element on any smartphone or computer that many users rely on and use the most on any given day – the calendar function – has stayed largely untouched.
Until now.”
Read the full article below to see how ECAL is changing the game in consumer engagement!
See the Sports Business Journal website here (sign up for a free trial subscription)
With the release of the new Apple Watch in-stores, we just had to get one…for R&D of course! The great news is that ECAL events, calendars and alerts sync very well with the Apple Watch.
All your favourite sports schedules, fitness classes, education curriculum, TV programming, powered by ECAL…straight to your wrist, in a really nice display!
The calendar has a range of displays. A ‘month’ view, ‘list’ view and ‘day’ view. Tap into an event to see a detailed ‘event details’ view.
What is noticeable, is that the calendar is very accessible on the watch, and easy to use. Along with the clock (yes, it tells the time!), and the daily activity tracker, the calendar is a real mainstay of the watch experience.
The ‘glances’ feature (a ‘quick view’ dashboard showing a range of important updates) is a quick way to see ‘what’s on’. The first swipe will show you the next event coming up; Tap and you will see events for the next week; Tap again to dive into the event details.
You can also access the full calendar from the Calendar app on the home screen display.
Event alerts are instantly displayed on the screen, with a vibration (more of a mild ‘thump’) to let you know. What’s best, I can’t help thinking about the ‘dynamic bars’ of the ECAL logo when I look at the various events, as they are all nicely colour coded. Very cool.
Unfortunately the quick links in the event details (eg: Buy Tickets, Video, Latest News etc) are not clickable from the watch, as Apple Watch doesn’t have a browser….yet.
Although the Apple Watch is really just a pairing device for your iPhone (your phone has to be within 10m), it is very useful and seems to ‘makes sense’. The calendar is a really nice experience, it ‘chunks’ the calendar down into easy to view event ‘bites’, in order to give me a great view of what’s coming up.
The calendar, once seen as a separate piece of logic, is now so much more integrated than that, and the watch demonstrates this really well. It makes sense right, it’s a watch! The calendar is fast becoming the default tool for which we all manage time, and as such a great conduit for time based alerts, “right-time communications”.
There’s lots to explore on the watch, it’s pretty cool. There are some great apps. Twitter has voice recognition for making tweets, there’s Siri, some cool watch faces, and a camera. You can even be like ‘Dick Tracy’ and make calls. I like it. For mine, the Apple Watch is a winner.
When it comes to checking in on favorite teams, most sports fans turn to their desktop computer and not their mobile device, That according to new data out from ECAL which shows nearly three-quarters (73%) of sports fans are using their desktop to check on the schedules and calendars of their favorite teams.
Other interesting findings from the ECAL survey include:
• 26% of fans use their mobile device to check the calendar of their favorite teams
• Of those connecting via mobile nearly half (49%) are using iPhones and 46% use Android devices
• 17% of NFL fans synch their teams’ calendars (Android) while 12% did so via iPhone
• 73% of college sports fans connect via desktop and 25% via mobile device
“The ECAL platform gives us valuable insight into how sports fans prefer to receive events-based communications, what calendar programs they use, who they are, and how they behave within the calendar space,” said Patrick Barrett, Founder and CEO of ECAL. “We see very high levels of engagement from the calendar space (via click-throughs) for generally high value items (such as buying tickets). We also expect to see the continued rise of the mobile device as the primary way to manage your important life schedule.”
The survey focused on soccer and American football. Researchers found that 70% of soccer fans connect via desktop while 67% of NFL fans connect via desktop.
Calendar marketing software ECAL is helping professional and amateur sports team connect with their fans via personal digital calendars and is also shedding light on the digital habits of sports fans.
The ECAL platform, which is leveraged by teams like the Chicago Bears, USA Volleyball and more than 28 international soccer teams, enables fans to choose what information they would like to receive from their favorite teams, such as match schedules, events, team and athlete appearances, gear sales and other information. In fact, more than 600,000 fans across the globe use the ECAL dynamic calendar service to connect with their favorite teams. The solution actually provides a unique way for brands to interact with their fans, as it enables them to bypass the inbox where content has a lot of competition, and share events directly with fans via personal calendars.
It is also important to note that ECAL recently revealed the findings of its March Sports Analytics Report, which sheds light on the digital habits of sports lovers. According to the data 73 percent of fans prefer to connect to their favorite teams via desktops, 26 percent prefer mobile devices and the rest prefer Facebook or other methods. Additional data shows that out of the fans who connect via mobile, iPhone is the most popular platform (49 percent), followed by Android (46 percent). Moreover, the data found that fans are interested in connecting via calendars, with the data revealing 70 percent of soccer fans connect via desktop calendars, compared to 67 percent of NHL fans and 73.5 percent of college sports fans. While this data isn’t relevant for all industries, it is important for every industry to know how their audience prefers to connect with their brand.
”The ECAL platform gives us valuable insight into how sports fans prefer to receive events-based communications, what calendar programs they use, who they are, and how they behave within the calendar space,” said Patrick Barrett, Founder and CEO of ECAL. “We see very high levels of engagement from the calendar space (via click-throughs) for generally high value items (such as buying tickets). We also expect to see the continued rise of the mobile device as the primary way to manage your important life schedule.”
