Portal hits pavement

Amid the seemingly never-ending and not entirely positive headlines about Yagoo and Microhoo and YaGoogle floating north from the US, Yahoo Canada is hitting the road with 'Y!-Fi' hotspots. Watch out for that Yodelling horn...

Yahoo Canada is launching a road trip with Toronto-based CityFlitz Advertising. About a dozen Yahoo Canada-branded Mini Clubmans will hit the pavement across Ontario, equipped with laptops, Wi-Fi and Yodel horns.

The Minis will travel the highways and byways of south-central Ontario throughout July and August and stop at local fairs and festivals. The vehicles are staffed by Invent and part of CityFlitz’s fleet.

Yahoo Canada director of marketing Hunter Madsen called the campaign a ‘lighthearted field marketing program that aims to surprise and delight people by taking the Yahoo! Canada online experience on the road. People can send emails or look up anything at www.yahoo.ca from the comfort of the zany purple cars we’ve turned into traveling ‘Y!-Fi’ hotspots.’