Would you trade beer ads for free phone calls?

Canadian brewing giant Labatt's has just called time on an innovative marketing ploy - offering drinkers free long distance phone calls as long as they listen to a 10-second advert before proceeding with their call.

Thanks to cheap VoIP phone calls, Labatt's Brewery was able to offer a free long-distance phone service to thousands of residents of Ontario. But every time any of the 1,000 new subscribers a day dialled out, they had to listen to a 10-second Labatt's commercial.

A company spokesman said: "It's not as cheesy as 'This call brought to you by Labatt's'."

The company has now ended the special offer after Ontarians made about 40 million calls, listened to 40 million beer adverts and used half a billion minutes of airtime.

In the past, offering free long distance to potentially hundreds of thousands of people would have been a ludicrous way to promote a company, product or brand. The cost of the airtime to support the program would far outweigh the increased sales or marketing data a company might get in return. But Labatt's BlueLine, launched last summer, used VoIP technology to dramatically lower costs by sending calls out on the internet rather than a telephone company's privately owned network.

So will the service ever be resurrected? Labatt's isn't telling. Its official line is: "Tons of exciting promotions are planned for the upcoming year."

Companies who provided the technology that made BlueLine possible say this is only the beginning. More retailers and progressive marketing companies are embracing VoIP dialing as another avenue to reach customers.

Ben Charny writes for News.com