As part of its commitment to aggressively build and market Canoe, Quebecor has purchased BCE’s 40% stake in the online news and information provider and created the Quebecor New Media division.

‘When you own something fully, you can control the direction of the organization and have the freedom to set your own course,’ says Rosanne Caron, Canoe’s newly appointed vice-president of marketing and research. ‘With their newspaper interests, I think Quebecor is in a wonderful position to leverage that connection with Canoe.’

Canoe is currently girding itself for a mainstream marketing push, set to launch Sept. 6. The multimedia campaign, which is estimated to be worth just under $2 million – the biggest to date for Canoe – is being created by Ambrose Carr Linton Carroll, while media buying is being handled by Toronto-based Media Dimensions.

Canoe will evaluate its progress early in the new year to determine whether an agency review is warranted, Caron says.

Canoe is backing up its advertising efforts by bolstering its presence in Quebec with a French-language version of its Web site scheduled to be unveiled in late September. The Web site is also courting potential content partners and advertisers in the western provinces, in hopes of creating a more truly national brand.

Since acquiring a stake in Canoe through its purchase of Sun Media last January, Quebecor has demonstrated a willingness to invest heavily in the growth and development of the Web site. In addition to beefing up the marketing budget and expanding into Quebec and the west, the publishing giant plans to almost double Canoe’s staff of 60 in the next few months.

This renewed focus on marketing comes at a critical time for Canoe, which is losing the battle for eyeballs and page-clicks to its more visible rival, Sympatico, of which BCE owns 75%. Canoe receives about 50 million page hits per month, trailing the estimated 65 million for Sympatico.