The NBA has released its 2018/19 regular season schedule for what is sure to be another blockbuster year ahead, and ECAL is proud to play its part!
Fans of leading NBA teams including the Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors can easily sync team games, broadcast details, ticket alerts and more, straight to their personal calendar. Powered by the world’s leading calendar communications service. With direct access to Tickets, Latest News, League Pass, Video, Team Shop and more, from the convenience of their calendar, fans will never miss moment of the action.
See here a selection of just some of the great launch promotion created by NBA teams using ECAL.
The 73rd NBA season will tip off on Tuesday 16th October 2018, with the 76’ers taking on the Celtics in Boston. The Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors are both tipped to contend for the Eastern Conference title, whilst new LA Laker, LeBron James, will return to play Cleveland on 21st November.
Follow the Pacers, Raptors or Cavs now, with the compliments of ECAL.
The NBL, Australia and New Zealand’s pre-eminent professional men’s basketball league has released its 2018/19 Fixture, powered by ECAL!
Fans of the eight-team competition are treated to a live and dynamic feed of game details, delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice.
Basketball lovers will never miss a moment with match entries automatically updated with TV broadcast information, official game hashtags and direct access to Tickets, Membership, Online Shop and more, all just a click away
The 2018/19 Schedule includes a number of highlights, including Andrew Bogut’s debut for the Sydney Kings against the Adelaide 36ers, the first ever Melbourne Cup eve clash between the Sydney Kings and Melbourne United, two matches to bring in the New Year, matches across regional New Zealand and and a basketball extravaganza held across the Australia Day weekend.
You can follow your team throughout the 18/19 Season and join thousands of basketball fans who rely on ECAL to stay up-to-date and connected to the NBL via their personal calendar. Sync your team fixture here.
The largest online food ordering service in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, HungerStation, used ECAL to drive engagement and orders around the FIFA World Cup.
Part of the Delivery Hero group, HungerStation delivers food from over 100+ restaurants to your doorstep, and promises high standards of service and guaranteed food delivery.
Managed by TTP Creative Agency, and promoted on social media via Facebook and Twitter, the HungerStation ECAL offered customers the ability to sync the World Cup schedule (or games of your favourite teams), straight to their personal calendar on mobile or desktop, complete with timely alerts and promotional discounts.
The ECAL display and all calendar entries were entirely in Arabic, and the service worked to engage customers around the World Cup to order their food, take advantage of discounts, and have the food delivered in time to watch the game!
Another awesome example of how ECAL enterprise technology can deliver a brilliant customer experience with amazing, measurable success to a global audience.
ECAL, the world’s leading calendar marketing platform, has extended its enterprise product for the ‘payments’ space, to set about solving serious issues affecting business today.
Right now there is a widening cash flow gap, which is negatively impacting small and large businesses alike, and their ability to make ends meet. In fact, a 2017 study reported that “62 percent of businesses would not survive more than three months if all invoices went unpaid”. Further, “at least half say being paid on time would reduce stress, avoid unnecessary debt and drive business growth”.
To address this issue, ECAL has launched a payment reminders service direct to calendar, designed to help customers better manage their payments, so business is paid on time.
In a recent trial project with National Australia Bank, banking customers received personalised ‘payment reminders’ for their specific credit card account, to see how calendar reminders performed against traditional SMS reminders in helping customers pay on-time.
The limited trial proved that calendar reminders by ECAL were the most effective communications method for customers, with ‘on-time’ payments increasing by 12%. This included a 37% ‘spike’ in payments made when an advanced reminder was served to calendar.
Whilst the report suggests that “reminder apps” will help with this growing problem, ECAL’s ‘calendar reminders’ technology appears to provide a much more sophisticated and effective billing reminder solution, as it is totally personalised to the user, and integrates directly with their native calendar!
The calendar entries include handy alerts (at the right time), specific amount due, and a direct link to ‘Pay Now’, amongst other features to inform and assist customers.
ECAL CEO, Patrick Barrett says “as a team we’re excited to uncover new and valuable use cases for our advanced calendar communications technology. As a business, we’re committed to helping solve real problems, with highly valuable, tangible benefits. With over 70% of adults relying on their digital calendar to manage life, and with the cost of collections and support such a major burden on business, we feel ECAL delivers a better performing and ultimately more cost effective solution for payment-related communications.”
If you would like to know more about ECAL’s billing reminder software, please contact us.
Premier League, the world’s most popular football league, has just released its 2018/2019 Fixture!
With the help of ECAL, the official ‘digital calendar’ service provider for the Premier League, football fans around the world receive a live and dynamic feed of game details, delivered straight to their personal calendar.
Over the last week, the Premier League fixture release campaign has been enormous!
Premier League have created splash pages, website banners, a dedicated email launch and Twitter and Facebook takeovers surrounding ECAL’s calendar syncing the fixture to fans calendars through ECAL’s service.
Our team has also been busy managing and supporting any queries with the calendar service, through online support and social media.
Fans can choose to receive fixtures of their favourite team(s), the complete season fixture, and even the Fantasy Premier League schedule of weekly trade deadlines.
The Premier League Digital Calendar is a truly global service, with displays in 30+ languages, and serves localised TV broadcast information to fans across 200+ countries, so fans never miss a moment of the action.
Match entries also include handy reminders, official game hashtags and direct access to Buy Tickets, Livestream, Match Centre, Online Shop and more.
Three new teams, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Cardiff City and Fulham, enter the Premier League competition for the 2018/19 season.
Follow your team throughout the 18/19 season and join the hundreds of thousands of football fans who rely on ECAL to stay up to date and connected to Premier League via their calendar!
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, the world’s leading calendar marketing solution, is proud to announce its partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the governing body of cricket globally.
Cricket lovers throughout the world can now sync their favourite Men’s and Women’s fixtures straight to their personal calendar, so they know what’s on and when, wherever they are. With handy alerts and direct access to the ICC live Match Centre, Tickets, Latest News, Social Media and more, cricket fans will never miss a moment of the action.
For ECAL, this is yet another significant partnership with a major global sport. With an enormous audience, particularly within the Indian subcontinent, this partnership takes the ECAL service to millions of new users.
Big business, across many industries, are a perfect fit for the ECAL’s enterprise solution. With a need for high security, high levels of customisation, preferential API’s and in-depth data analysis, ECAL is the ‘go-to’ solution for enterprise business.
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
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.
