Of course every major newspaper website covers the European Championships. You can find news and backgrounds, beautiful photos, games and interviews almost anywhere. One who, in my view, is very special is the “Volkskrant EK webspecial”. Because of the beautiful design.

De Volkskrant has produced a real ‘online magazine’ which you can browse through. By clicking in the right bottom corner the pages are turned and you get a new page where you can find more information.

De Volkskrant fills the magazine with about 15 or 16 pages. These pages are regularly updated in response to the events in Switzerland and Austria. After the home page (which opens with “the football mars” playing in the background so put your sound on) you can browse through the different parts.

Of course, there is the ‘user generated content part to "get the visitor to do things." You can send in your own EC-photo which will be posted on the site. There is a spoken column by one of the VK-columnists who are present at the tournament and the selection of the Netherlands can be viewed in special artwork. Something that is reminiscent of the old pictures that were made in the 70’s.

The magazine also contains predictions of Volkskrant journalists and video’s of Volkskrant.tv. Very nice is a list of all participants off the EC. By country there are photos shown on amateur pitches from that particular country.

Finally, you can obviously see results and standings, you can specify whom you think is the best goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or attacker and there is a summary page where you can find all Volkskrant-EC parts.

The website will be paid by sponsors as a double page at their disposal. But it’s very fun to just browse through!

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

The amount of websites that try to take advantage of the European Championships is immense. And everybody wants to earn money. And why not. Sometimes there are a couple where you automatically get a good feeling. That was the case with the website www.oranjeshirtjes.nl. Maybe it is because I have two small children myself, but the idea speaks to me.

The idea is very simple: for your child between the ages of 0 to 6 you can order a printed t-shirt. Now you can do that in many places, but this site makes it easy if you want a t-shirt specially printed for the European Championships. The site is an initiative of the creators of the website www.shirtsforkids.nl. Because they couldn’t find affordable shirts for their own kids they started this website.

For less than a tenner (9.95), you can order a printed shirt. If you do not want to make time to iron a shirt yourself this is a nice idea. The website is simple. You do not much more than choosing from a dozen shirts and to order. You can still look in a fotobook (although that name is a somewhat large for 4 photos) and you can leave a message in the guestbook.

The guestbook and two small things make the site ‘familiar’. That the sponsor mentions her own children is fun and that a portion of the proceeds goes to the Kika Foundation is very sympathetic. There is not said how much of the proceeds, but it is well conceived. A nice little initiative! But off course you can also just iron your own print on a t-shirt, very easy and a lot cheaper.

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

That YouTube is a good marketing tool, we had already identified. The advertisements that you can see on television are often viewed better, longer and more often than on the television itself. That’s also the case with this one by Holland Casino in cooperation with Heineken. This commercial focusses on the merchandising around the European Championships. Well found and it gives a good picture of the ‘madness’ that is hanging around the EC. The video is now viewed already almost 3000 times on YouTube…

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

In addition to all the ec-pools and footbalnews websites nu.nl has added a fun element that many users will like. Nu.nl has used its NuFoto functionality for their special EC website. On the page you can see photos which are made by "visitors". As a visitor you can upload your own photo to the site. You can also vote on photos of others. The photos are displayed in different ways.

Nu.nl has used several selection methods. There is a section ‘popular’ where the most popular photos can be viewed. In addition, you can obviously see the last added, you can see them all at once and you can view them as a slideshow.

At this moment there are only 12 photos available. But the principle is, of course, fun. And there are already some very nice pictures online. Potentially you can expect photos of decorated streets or trips to the European Championships.

What strikes me is that the ‘related photos’ are not really related. For example you get to see images of the fire in Delft, a protest of Moluccans and images of a collision. Not really related subjects I hope…

The website can still use some promotion and content, but the idea certainly is to my liking. I’m curious wether after the European Championships the website will be filled with ‘tasty stuffed’.

The website ek.nusport.nl has the ‘standard’ parts of a website that responds to the European Championships. There’s news, you can make your own pool and videos from nu.nl related to the topic are clustered.

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

The summer is usually a time when there is nothing much to see on television. There is a lot Sports on though, with annual events such as Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Tour de France. In a year like this one there are also the European Soccer Championship and the Olympic Games. That provides a lot of ‘new’ TV-shows.

One of those new shows is "play like a champion ‘ that is broadcasted daily at 19.30 on Channel 3. At the slot of ‘De wereld draait door". The program is an old-fashioned football quiz presented by Jack van Gelder. Each day (well, everything is taped on 1 day, but we get to see only 1 per day) four ‘Dutch’ celebrities join in to answer questions about the game of Football.

The TROS, responsible for the program, has a good online sequel to the action. On the website http://www.playlikeachampion.nl/ can you participate in the quiz. It is a wonderful paradise for people with a lot of knowledge about football.

If you sign in to the website you get access to all parts of the website. You can have your own distinctive profile where you can specify what your favorite line up for the Dutch team is, what your favorite club is and share even more football details about yourself. Also you get a personal avatar that you can dress in and various styles with European shirts.

On the website Jack van Gelder can give you a tour. There are several game-types available on the website. Like for example in the Vi-EK poule you can choose to play in their own groups set up, ‘clubs’. This is the’2 .0 effect’ put back into operation: You can invite your friends. You can also ‘just’ play ‘against’ strangers.

You will be divided into ‘divisions’ following your results, allowing you to play against ‘equal opponents’. You get 15 seconds to answer a multiple choice question. The quicker you answer, the more points you get. You can choose from various categories of the questions.

It is best to play with others. On your own it gets boring quickly, but against others the game element plays an important role.

The site offers a number of additional features: an online magazine with a ‘Question of the day’ and interviews with players. And here you can as well read the last news about football, provided by AD Sportwereld. And of course you can also win things: a shirt of the Dutch national team. By answering the viewers question correctly everyday you have chance at winning a shirt.

It is a wonderful site that is a good follow up to the tv-show. The nice thing is that you can also make suggestions for questions. Too bad that the question will not be used on television, because everything is already pre-recorded. That would really User Generated Content!

I did pretty good, how did you do? Let me know!

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

Website: http://www.vi-ekpoule.nl/
By: Voetbal International and L’Oreal

Voetbal International is the first place where you can expect specials around the European Championships Football. And indeed you can already see the contours of the championship on the site.

The opening of the website is these days dominated by advertisements. You need to pass a "splash page”, an advertising page, before you can click to the website. In recent days the splash page was dominated by VI-EC-pool.

Meanwhile, the al-page splash has another destination. The VI-EC-pool is now accessible through a banner on the site itself.

The banner leads you to a separate website, http://www.vi-ekpoule.nl/. On this site you can do a lot around the European Championships. The most important thing is the age-old principle of predicting the results. Ever since the existence of sports predictions are made and I think almost everyone has played in a Football pool game with friends before.

There are many sites on which you can take part in a Football pool. This website is one of them. This site provides many possibilities in this regard. You can participate as individuals or as a group. So with your friends you can, whether or not in a closed area, play your own game.

VI actually build a real community here. You can, in addition to providing forecasts take a look at predictions of others, build a profile and change it (what strikes me is that as one of the two messenger choices given one of them is ICQ). A nice thing is that you can create a group where you can choose your own URL (www.vi-ECpool.nl/yoururl).

Of course, the site contains the usual information about Football. The match schedule, the latest news on the VI website and statistics from the European Championships.

It would be no specials-website if the site was not punctuated by commercialism. L’Oreal is the main sponsor who attached its name to the special. Actually L’Oreal offers nothing more than some of the prizes you can win, two times 25 packages of male grooming products. This gives L’Oreal a nice exposure on this site. L’Oreal focuses mainly on male grooming products on this site, thereby ignoring the loads of women interested in the game.

It is not the most eye-catching ‘special’ about the European Championships, but one that will be widely used, making it for L’Oreal an interesting deal.

These postings are part of the series on EC specials. For more postings look at the specials page.
 

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

In June the European Championships Football begin in Austria and Switzerland. Such a tournament means more and more advertising, both online, offline and on television. I will try to highlight some of the online actions around the championship. Hereby I will certainly look at the cross-and multi-media dimension of the actions and commercials. Also I will look at what they do for search.

In the first part, I would like to show an add that is not has not so much an online character but which provides every ‘boys’ imagination: Take It To the NEXT LEVEL of Nike. Here you can see through the eyes of a footballer how he gets to a higher level. Very nice. Just because it’s so beautiful is the first in the series …

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer