Online poker gaming is a competitive landscape in Canada, but PartyPoker.net believes it can stand out with a contest that features the Aston Martin DB9 sports car as the top prize. Targeting male consumers aged 18 to 24, the goal of ‘Drive the Dream’ was to develop a campaign that would raise local participation rates for the Gibraltar-based PartyPoker.net.

The site will host three free daily ‘entry’ games with the top three players promoted to the qualifiers on Sept. 12. The winner of that game will move to the real table in London, England for the international, Drive the Dream Live Final in October.

‘Party Poker is a great, entry-level site so that if you’re a new player starting out you can join tables that are at your caliber of experience,’ says Sylvia Prentice, VP media services at MacKinnon Calderwood Advertising, which handled the media buy for ‘Drive the Dream.’ Creative was developed overseas, but adapted to the local market by the Mississauga-based MacKinnon.

Television is the primary strategy of promoting the contest, with placements that dominate poker programming across specialty sports channels like SportsNet, TSN, and The Score, as well as placements during World Poker Tour on Global TV. Recognizing that not all males watch sports, Prentice says the agency also placed ads on History and Discovery channels in Canada. And because the second, third and fourth winners of the contest will receive Lamborghini, Ferrari and Porsche driving packages, respectively, what better place to advertise than in the cramped quarters of public transit, with an OOH launch in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

A sponsored print supplement also appeared in the Toronto Sun earlier this month, titled ‘Let’s Play Poker’ with two full-page ads, an advertorial and branding throughout the sports section pullout.

‘The strategy was very much to tap into taking some share back and get into new audiences,’ Prentice tells MiC.