Boxing Kangaroo

Boxing Kangaroo is a brand owned by the Australian Olympic Committee that was used to create an online "sportal" (sports portal) focused around the Australian Olympic Team. It is also a vehicle to raise money through merchandising.

Objectives

To provide a portal site, drawing news from a variety of sources, including an XML feed from AAP (Australian Associated Press) as well as teams of journalists, with up to date news about Australian sports people, primarily the Australian Olympic Team.
To create channels for the public to have access to the athletes and to create somewhere for the athletes to inspire the public with more than just their sporting achievements.
Collect user profiles including email addresses for email campaigns.
Deliver online orders for Boxing Kangaroo merchandise

Target Audience

Sports fans, primarily Australian supporters.

Solution

Visually vibrant site, based on very established and strong brand.
Sophisticated content management and publishing engine with multiple levels of administrative user access to allow for editors to screen the content and manage the publishing of news articles and public user submitted content
Rich media through the use of audio and video bites.
Built a desire in the user to participate in the site via competitions, chat boards and the BK Club.

Results

During the Sydney Olympics, from a month or so prior to the opening ceremony and for the month or so after the games finished, the Boxing Kangaroo was a busy site. Over 40,000 email addresses were collected in short space of time.

Technology

Java/JSP
Sybase ASE 11.9.2
JavaScript
HTML/DHTML
XML
XSL
Sybase Replication Server

Environment

Linux
Apache Web Server with Tomcat
Sybase ASE 11.9.2
Intel Load Balancing Switch

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