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The "FIFA World Cup Germany 2006" website was a stand-alone extension of the news websites of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Due to the time difference between Germany and Sydney, many matches occurred after print deadlines – meaning print reporters filed straight to online.
The site structure was designed to deliver quality news, information and interactive tools to meet the expectations of users who have come to rely on our websites for exceptional sport coverage. The site incorporated a broad range of compelling and engaging content such as instant match results, interactive charts, expert commentary direct from Germany, photo galleries, a dedicated blog and an interactive Citizen Journalism page for fans to post comments, video and photographs of their World Cup experiences.
The project objectives were to:
a) Provide premier online news coverage of the World Cup in Australia with a truly interactive approach that would generate 6 million page impressions, 220,000 unique browsers a week and 80,000 video streams.
b) Acquire 10,000 subscribers to the daily World Cup newsletter.
The website exceeded all set targets and expectations by delivering a total of over 19 million page impressions, 695,000 unique browsers a week and 690,000 video streams. The sections that proved most popular with users were the Aussie Updates with a total of 8.4 million page impressions and the photo galleries with 4.2 million page impressions.
The competition element of the website was introduced to create awareness of the site and generate registrations to the daily World Cup newsletter. Those who signed up to receive the daily newsletter were entered into the draw to win an exclusive business class trip to see Australia play in the World Cup. The competition was a success with 27,114 entries and newsletter registrations, which surpassed expectations by 171%. |