harvest digital

Thomas Cook is to be the exclusive sponsor of Tiscali’s new World Cup microsite accessed via www.tiscali.co.uk.   In the deal, negotiated by Thomas Cook’s retained online marketing agency Harvest Digital, banners, buttons and text links will appear on almost every channel of the microsite.  The campaign aims to raise brand awareness and drive traffic to the Thomas Cook website using creative offering ‘World Cup prices from £19.66′ to countries involved in the Cup.

Featuring content from Reuters, Rivals and Getty images, the microsite will have match previews, reports, stats and predictions for each game as well as live match commentary, group tables and  a guide to each team.  There will also be a Rough Guide to Germany, a regular column from Sky’s Andy Gray and interactive features such as caption competitions, a Miss World Cup vote, fantasy football and news from England supporters on the ground.  A media player screens match highlights after showing five seconds of flash creative from Thomas Cook.

The site will be supported with sponsored emails to the Tiscali audience as well as highlight emails and a sports newsletter.  Harvest Digital is booking an online co-branded banner campaign to drive traffic to the microsite and a ‘Love it or hate it’ promotion offering the chance to win travel to the World Cup or to escape it with Thomas Cook.

Manuel Mascarenhas, head of online marketing at Thomas Cook says, ‘Tiscali is a great fit for the Thomas Cook brand and we’re anticipating that the microsite will generate more than 200 million page views, which represents fantastic exposure for our brand in the run up to the main holiday season.’

Emma Wilson, partner at online marketing agency Harvest Digital adds ‘Clearly everyone will be talking about and reading about the World Cup this summer, and this sponsorship gives access to a large and passionate audience at one of the busiest times in the travel calendar.”

The microsite will be available at www.tiscali.co.uk/events/2006/world-cup until July 2006.