ECAL enhances its customer experience with fast and frictionless payments from the calendar.

ECAL, the world’s leading direct to calendar marketing platform, are excited to announce a ground-breaking new addition to their sync-to-calendar technology, that allows users to make purchases directly from their calendar.

Introducing Hyper, a digital payments wallet and ID enrichment feature. It is designed to enable ECAL publishers and their merchants to deliver a hyper-personalised product offer to users at the right time, in their personal digital calendar, with a fast and frictionless checkout experience.

Consider a calendar entry for a football game of your favourite team, with a special offer presented five minutes prior to stream the game live on your mobile. Or a concert of your favourite artist, with a special offer for VIP tickets available 30 minutes prior to the general on-sale. All secured and paid for in just a few clicks directly from the calendar on your mobile. This is an exciting opportunity for ECAL and Hyper clients wanting to develop a better transactional experience for their customers.

Hyper delivers a personalised, timely and simplified purchase experience, empowering more customers to buy at the moments that matter. It is estimated that Hyper will work at up to double the normal purchase rate for clients currently using ECAL’s sync-to-calendar technology.

Hyper is underpinned by an advanced Level 1 PCI DSS payment orchestration system. It provides merchants with an intuitive and customisable checkout widget, integrates with over 30+ payment gateways, handles multiple currencies, and facilitates a variety of payment methods including single payments, recurring and ‘buy now pay later’ options.

CEO of ECAL, Patrick Barrett, explains the importance of Hyper to the overall customer experience: “ECAL is obsessed with optimising the calendar experience for both our clients and customers. Hyper lets us play a definitive role in the complete customer journey, from initial interest on a client website, right through to successful purchase via a merchant partner, to ultimately streamline the path to purchase – which we find really, really exciting.”

Whilst Hyper is a breakthrough for ECAL, Barrett hints at future opportunities beyond the calendar, saying “Hyper is a sophisticated digital payments wallet, and it provides a powerful solution for any enterprise business with the need to better orchestrate complex, multi-currency, multi-type payments.”

The announcement closely follows the recent appointment of Silicon Valley based technology entrepreneur, Karen Orford, as ECAL’s Global Head of Customer Success.

In what is yet another monumental achievement for parent company, HyperKu, the launch of Hyper wallet is indicative of HyperKu’s principle of investing in technologies that simplify the overall consumer experience for the modern world.

Learn more about Hyper here: https://hyperid.co/

After 61 years away from Formula One, Aston Martin is back on the World Championship grid. Thanks to ECAL, racing fans will never miss a moment of this iconic brand’s return to the racetrack.

ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature provides Aston Martin fans with the world’s best digital calendar service. Race details are updated dynamically throughout the season, complete with localised broadcast information, direct access to the Racetrack Information, Shop, Latest News, Latest Video, Social Media and lots more.

The inclusion of ECAL’s Sync to Calendar forms part of the brands wider strategy to engage and build a connected audience across the globe, where interests lie both on and off the racetrack. Not only can fans sync the full F1 schedule, including pre-race, practice and qualifying events, but the team’s ESports V10 R-League Season 2 schedule, AMF1 Events and Promotions & Offers. ‘Sync to Calendar’ buttons are integrated across the AMF1 website, including homepage and impact displays on individual race page countdown clock tiles.

ECAL’s solution for Aston Martin includes single-sign on registration. Fans must be logged in as a registered member of #IAMF1 in order to start the sync journey. When the sync button is clicked, a pop up will prompt users to login or register as a member.

Single-sign on registration was a key consideration for Aston Martin when choosing ECAL and it will undoubtedly become a highly-sought after feature moving forward according to ECAL CEO Patrick Barrett.

“As publishers invest in single identity management across platforms, it’s important vendor partners like ECAL can support single sign-on to facilitate a consistent, familiar login experience, and uniformity around data and insights for the business.”

Racing fans, don’t miss a moment throughout the 2021 Season and beyond with ECAL. Visit https://www.astonmartinf1.com and register now.

STACK SPORTS (SPORTSTG) PARTNER WITH ECAL
Sports fixtures delivered, straight to the digital calendar 

Stack Sports (SportsTG), the leading provider of digital solutions to national, state, grassroots and professional sporting organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom has today announced an exciting partnership with ECAL, the leading calendar communications and marketing software business.

ECAL’s dynamic ‘sync to calendar’ functionality will deliver the latest sports fixture information, straight to the personal digital calendar of users, to keep them up-to-date and connected. This solution will become a standard feature on the Stack Sports competition management platform.

Anthony Richardson, Director of Digital for Stack Sports), said: “ECAL’s offering compliments the existing features of our products and solutions. Stack Sports continues to evolve our business and product set and we are excited to have partnered with ECAL whose offering will now benefit Stacks customers.”

Patrick Barrett, CEO/Founder of ECAL said: “We are thrilled to partner with Stack Sports, and bring ECAL’s smart calendar technology to the lives of its extensive user community. During these unprecedented times, as competitions begin to reschedule fixtures, accurate and dynamic communications will play an important role in successful competition management. The Stack user community, with the help of ECAL, will be well placed to know exactly what’s on, when and where, so they can better manage life.”

Stack Sports have been providing high quality technology solutions in the Australian market since 2001 along with working in other key markets including the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Stack partners with a large number of National Sporting Organisations including the AFL, Basketball Australia, Touch Football Australia, Hockey Australia, Basketball New Zealand, New Zealand Rugby League, Rugby Football League, and Basketball England.

The technology Stack Sports provides assists in administering everything from national programme registrations to school holiday programs, week to week competitions to digital website solutions, and club sales and revenue-generating eCommerce platforms. Stack Sports will continue to partner with sporting organisations and other bodies to be the leading provider of sports digital ecosystems across the world.

ECAL is a world-leading calendar communications and marketing software business. It’s smart, dynamic ‘Sync to Calendar’ technology is used by 300+ major sports, ticketing, media organisations incl. Premier League, NBA, ICC, LaLiga, Formula E, AFL, NRL, Ticketek, Fox Sports and others, servicing 8M+ users. With over 70% of adults relying on their digital calendar to manage life, effective calendar communications are an essential weapon in the marketing toolkit for events-based business.

For more information and interviews, please contact:

Cameron O’Riordan
Director of Sales & Marketing
Stack Sports – APAC/EMEA
Phone: +61 (0) 475 415 801
cameron.oriordan@stacksports.com

Patrick Barrett
Founder / CEO
ECAL
Phone: +61 (0)411 650 445
patrick@ecal.com

The ECB’s much anticipated Hundred competition is clearly viewed as an unmissable summer event, with initial sales for the Hundred having ‘surpassed expectations’.

Part of the ECB’s ticketing strategy was to build strong early interest and trigger advanced sales via a Priority Ticket Release window. Fans could register their interest in the tournament via the website, and received access to the priority ticket window.

The ECB also used the official fixture release as a major promotional event, and using ECAL’s dynamic ‘Sync to Calendar’ service, fans were instantly connected – they would receive the fixture straight to calendar, along with important ticket release dates.

Levering it’s large connected calendar audience, as part of a truly integrated marketing approach, the ECB were able to deliver advance notice to fans of the upcoming Priority Ticket Release window, with details on pricing and direct access to purchase. This was a wonderful way to stimulate consumer demand and early sales amongst a high value, qualified, passionate fan base.

Within the first 24 hours of availability, ECB sales had surpassed the six-figure barrier.

ECAL’s state-of-the-art digital calendar service delivers the ECB with a tremendous platform to ‘connect’, ‘engage’ and ‘activate’ its audience around the events they love.

ECAL is proud to be the official calendar marketing service provider of The ECB. Choose your team in The Hundred, and follow your favourite international and domestic cricket here, proudly powered by ECAL.

ECAL’s Sync to Calendar technology is allowing Formula E fans to stay informed and up-to-date with the latest season information via the calendar amid the escalating threat of the COVID-19 epidemic.

ECAL’s ‘digital calendar’ solution ensures fans across the globe enjoy a live and dynamic feed of race events.  Events dynamically update in the calendar, so if there are race events postponed, rescheduled or cancelled, they’ll be the first to know.

ECAL Founder and CEO Patrick Barrett said: “ECAL is the perfect platform to engage fans, particularly with event (date and time) driven information. Events can change for any number of reasons, ECAL provides real-time updates in the calendar and provides publishers with another medium to communicate with their fans.  

The technology also allows publishers to update the content and redirect the focus to align with other key objectives of the business.  Take the case of a closed race-circuit or stadium for instance, calendar entries, reminders and links can drive tune-in via live stream, provide localised broadcast information or engage in fan related activities like Formula E’s fanboost“.  

With future scheduled races under threat of cancellation, ECAL’s sync to calendar solution provides Formula E with a timely and reliable solution to keep fans informed.

You can sync the Formula E season here, and stay up-to-date and connected thanks to ECAL.

Home of the world’s fastest electric cars, Formula E has kicked into the new season with ECAL’s world-leading ‘Sync to Calendar’ service, to help engage racing fans across the globe.

The Formula E Championship commenced in 2014, and is currently contested by eleven teams across fourteen rounds on exciting city circuits from London and New York to Diriyah, Berlin, Paris, Rome & Marrakech.

With a complex network of broadcast arrangements across the world and online, the Formula E’s official ‘digital calendar’ solution is designed to engage fans to the right events, in the right place, at the right time. Fans will never miss a moment of their favourite E-Prix, plus Qualifying, Practice, and Post-race highlights, with all the various updates dynamically delivered to the users’ calendar of choice. Event details include localised TV broadcast and streaming details, handy alerts, and direct access to Follow LIve, FANBOOST, News, Store and more, straight from the user calendar.

Formula E is the only event in the world that lets fans play an active role in the race with FANBOOST. FANBOOST lets fans vote for their favourite driver and award them an extra boost of power during the race. ECAL helps drive FANBOOST, delivering timely reminders to fans with one-click access to vote for their favourite driver.

With the season’s first and second rounds completed in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, digital engagement was at an all-time high since the first ever Championship in 2014, thanks to a range of new digital initiatives and the entry of exciting new teams including Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.

ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is integrated across the Formula E website, with high impact display ads on the home page, along with the Race Calendar and individual Race pages. It is also promoted across other digital channels including Facebook and Twitter pages. The racing teams and Formula E’s major corporate partners also promote the service via their digital channels.

You can sync individual races or the entire Formula E season here, and stay up-to-date and connected thanks to ECAL.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has partnered with ECAL, to launch it’s new ‘Sync to Calendar’ service for all international and domestic cricket competitions including the exciting new The Hundred!

The Hundred summer competition kicks off on 17th July 2020, featuring the world’s very best players. This action packed 100 ball competition consists of eight city-based franchise teams, each of which will field both a men’s and women’s team.

ECB’s official ‘Sync to Calendar’ service, powered by ECAL, allows cricket fans to sync their favourite teams and competitions directly to their personal digital calendar. Select from England Men’s and Women’s National Teams, Vitality Blast, County Championship, Royal London Cup and of course The Hundred. The widget category drop-down allows subscribers to select multiple teams across various competitions in one easy process.

Fans will enjoy a live and dynamic feed of games to suit their profile, with TV broadcast details, and direct access to Tickets, Live Scores, Stats, Latest Video, News, Social Media and more, all from the convenience of the calendar.

ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is integrated across the ECB website, with high impact display ads on the home page, and buttons on the Fixture pages. It’s also promoted across various other digital channels including the ECB mobile app, official facebook and twitter pages.

Choose your team in The Hundred, and follow your favourite international and domestic cricket here, proudly powered by ECAL.

FC Barcelona, one of the world’s most popular sports organisations, has chosen ECAL to provide its official ‘sync to calendar’ service to it’s many millions of fans across the globe.

More than just a champion Football team, Barça’s 144,000 strong membership base supports multiple professional teams across five sports, including Football, Futsal, Hockey, Basketball and Handball. All competing in the famous blue and garnet colours.

As part of Barça’s official ‘digital calendar’ solution, fans will enjoy a live and dynamic feed of games, across all teams and competitions delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice, rich with game information and direct access to tickets, merchandise, match centre, latest videos, social media and more.

ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is integrated across the Barça website, with high impact display ads on the home page, and promoted across various channels including the Club’s official facebook and twitter pages.

Fans across the globe can follow their favourite Barça team, with multiple language options including Spanish, Catalan and over 30 other languages available.

You can follow your favourite Barça team here, and stay up-to-date and connected thanks to ECAL.

The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), Russia’s famed international ice hockey league, has chosen ECAL to provide its official ‘sync to calendar’ communications and marketing service.

This feature is sponsored by the league’s major ‘Championship Partner’, Russian mobile phone operator MegaFon. With the entire user journey produced in Russian, including all game information and feature links, the feature is designed to drive tune-in to live KHL games on MegaFon TV – a popular high-speed TV streaming subscription service.

Fans can choose to receive all games across the league, or just games of their favourite teams. ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is integrated across the official KHL website, with high impact banner ‘mastheads’ on the schedule page, and promoted across various channels including the League’s official facebook and twitter pages.

KHL, an International professional ice hockey league based in Russia, comprises of 24 teams from Belarus, China, Finland, Latvia, Kazakhstan. The competition is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league across Europe and Asia, and second in stature behind the National Hockey League (NHL).

You can follow your favourite KHL team throughout the 2019/20 season here, and stay up-to-date and connected thanks to ECAL.

The Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (Spanish Football League) has chosen ECAL to provide its official ‘sync to calendar’ service to football fans across the globe.

LaLiga, Spanish Football’s premier division is Europe’s number one league, a competition producing the continent’s top-rated clubs, the most Champions League, Europa League and FIFA World Cup titles, and highest number of Ballon d’Or winners.

As part of LaLiga’s official ‘digital calendar’ solution,  fans will enjoy a live and dynamic feed of games, delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice, rich with features to drive sales, tune-in and engagement.

Fans can choose to sync match schedules for their favourite team(s) across the League’s three divisions.

ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature is integrated across the LaLiga website, with high impact display ads on the home page, and promoted across various channels including the League’s official facebook and twitter pages.

You can follow your favourite LaLiga team throughout the 2019/20 season here, and stay up-to-date and connected thanks to ECAL.