Excite launches Web portal

As Excite.ca rolls out the largest dot-com advertising campaign in Canadian history, it is already bragging about its ability to attract Canadian Internet advertising to its upstart Web portal.

Excite has booked more than $1 million in advertising for the 50-50 joint venture between Rogers Communications and Redwood Calif.-based Excite@home. Advertisers include Canadian e-commerce veterans such as HMV, Indigo and Air Canada.

To fulfill the promise of delivering the eyeballs of Canadian Web surfers to those advertisers, Excite has launched a three-month, $6.5-million, multi-media advertising campaign – Canada’s largest Internet company campaign, says Jennifer Langley, Excite.ca’s director of marketing.

The campaign, created by Toronto-based BBDO, is concentrated in Toronto and Vancouver where Internet penetration is the highest.

Excite has its work cut out for it. Yahoo Canada is still the market leader with about half of the 8.3 million Canadians who went online in January visiting Yahoo.com or Yahoo.ca, according to Media Metrix Canada, which tracks online usage. Bell Canada’s Sympatico.ca site had about 2.1 million users, while about 1.35 million Canadians visited Excite.com, making it the 16th-most popular site visited by Canadians.

While Excite will attempt to pry away some consumers from its competitors, it is primarily targeting new entrants to the Internet who have not yet formed brand loyalty with a competing portal, says George Bell, president and CEO of Excite@home.

‘This is not a displacement strategy,’ says Bell. ‘The goal of Excite.ca is not to steal customers from Yahoo. The goal of Excite.ca is to grow in a marketplace where there are many uncommitted users.’

The launch of Excite draws a clear battle line between Rogers and Bell Canada parent BCE, which recently offered to buy Canadian broadcaster CTV to provide content for its recently formed Sympatico-Lycos Web portal.

Both companies are attempting to stem the flow of Canadian Web traffic to U.S. sites by creating a uniquely Canadian platform for Canadian Internet surfers and advertisers.

But industry watchers are skeptical that the current offerings will convince Canadians to jump on the Internet portal bandwagon.

‘The portal strategy is still largely untested,’ says Jordan Worth, a telecommunications analyst at Toronto-based International Data Corporation (Canada). ‘This is a battle of brand, a battle of billboards rather than a battle of bits.’

With the content on both Bell and Rogers sites currently available directly from the providers, or on other competing portal sites, there is little to convince consumers to use the sites as much more than search engines, he says.

Cannes Lions 2025: Canadians nab more medals on final festival day

Strategy is on the ground in Cannes, bringing you the latest news, wins and conference highlights all week long. Catch all the coverage here.

Friday’s batch of Silver and Bronze winners included the oldest category at the Cannes festival, Film, as well as Sustainable Development Goals, Dan Wieden Titanium, Glass: The Lion for Change and Grand Prix for Good. Canadians were recognized with four Lions today: two Silver and a Bronze in Film, as well as a Bronze in Sustainable Development Goals.

FCB Toronto was given yet another nod for its work, “The Count,” for SickKids, bringing the medal count for that campaign to four, including a Gold for Health & Wellness. Another Canadian agency recognized on the final day of the festival was Klick Health Toronto, which earned a Silver in Film for its work “Love Captured” for Human Trafficking Awareness and a Bronze for “18 Months” for Second Nurture. And over in Sustainable Development Goals, the Bronze went to Publicis Canada and its “Wildfire Watchtowers” work for Rogers.

Another massive win for Canada included not one, but two Young Lions (pictured above) taking home medals in the annual competition. In Design, the Gold Young Lion was awarded to Rethink’s senior motion designer Jesse Shaw and ACD Zoë Boudreau. The second, a Bronze in Media, went to Cossette Media’s business intelligence analyst Samuel David-Durocher and product development supervisor Tristan Bonnot-Parent.

Film (2 Silver, 1 Bronze)

1 SILVER: “The  Count” by FCB Toronto for SickKids Foundation

“The Count,” a striking campaign from FCB Toronto for SickKids Foundation, has earned 1 Gold, 2 Bronze and now 1 Silver for Film at Cannes. If you watch it, it’s easy to see why. The collaboration between brand and agency honoured the hospital’s “VS” platform, while steering it in a new direction from its initial development by previous AOR Cossette. The creative celebrates childhood cancer patients who have to fight for every birthday, while honouring the hospital’s own milestone – 150 years and counting.

 

1 Silver: “Love Captured” by Klick Health Toronto for The Exodus Road

Klick Health Toronto added to its medal tally with a Silver in Film for it’s work “Love Captured” for The Exodus Road. The creative features a romantic getaway that isn’t what it seems in an experiential short film for the global anti-trafficking organization. The experience takes viewers through a tragic and twisting experience of exploitation.

 

1 BRONZE: “18 Months” by Klick Health Toronto for Second Nurture

Klick Health Toronto also won a Bronze in the Film category for its work, “18 Months,” done for the charity organization Second Nurture. The animated film is based on a real-life story in which a same-sex couple adopts a baby found in a subway station, and the 18-month journey into a story of hope.

Sustainable Development Goals (1 Bronze)

1 BRONZE: “Wildfire Watchtowers” by Publicis Canada for Rogers

Publicis Canada landed on the winners board for its work, “Wildfire Watchtowers,” for Rogers. The Canadian-developed wildfire-detection tech – which has been billed as “a fire alarm in the forest” – uses AI-powered sensors installed on 5G towers to monitor vast remote areas in real time. By scanning, identifying and reporting early signs of wildfires (up to 16 minutes faster than other systems), the technology helped prevent 54 fires in 2024 alone.

Catch the Gold winners later today when they’re revealed at the gala in Cannes.