By Ben Charny
CNET News.com
November 4, 2003, 5:01 PM PT

Thanks to cheaper Internet phone dialing, Labatt Brewery was able to offer a free long-distance phone service to thousands of residents of Ontario, Canada.

There was just one catch: every time any of the 1,000 new subscribers a day dialed out, they had to listen to a 10-second Labatt commercial. "It's not as cheesy as 'This call brought to you by Labatt,'" a company spokesman said.

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 BlueLine, launched last summer, used voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to dramatically lower costs by sending calls out on the Internet rather than a telephone company's privately owned network.

Meant just as a summer promotion when it began in July 2002, BlueLine took on a life of its own. It finally was put to rest on October 31 after Ontarians made about 40 million calls and used a half billion minutes of airtime.

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

Continued @ ZDNet