With 'focus' being today's marketing mantra, organisers of this month's Polocrosse World Cup have their sites set firmly on Ipswich in Southeast Queensland.

A multi-media campaign gets underway this week to promote a sport increasingly referred to as ""rugby on horseback"". The target is Ipswich's 145,000 residents who live 'just down the road' from the competition venue at Warwick.

Ipswich's multicultural population is recognised as a good potential audience for the week-long international sporting competition which begins on Monday 23 April.

World Cup chairman Mr Les Fraser said, ""As an amateur sport we have limited resources for our marketing so we've adopted the focused rather than scatter gun approach.

""Our two big catchment areas for the near drive market audience are Toowoomba and Ipswich. We've been working for some time on the Toowoomba region through our media partners but now its time to step up a gear and concentrate on neighbouring Ipswich,"" Mr Fraser said.

Organisers recognise that with Willowbank on its doorstep, Ipswich residents have some experience of attending outdoor sporting competitions. With a total of 20 international matches and dozens of club carnival matches over seven fields, plus a host of off-field entertainment, Mr Fraser said it is very different sport entertainment to spending a couple of hours in a stadium and is also a more affordable family day out.

Mr Fraser confirmed that there are a number of active Polocrosse families in the area, a number of whom are supplying horses to the World Cup pool for visiting internationals or are working as volunteers for the prestigious event.

The Ipswich promotional campaign includes:

• Pre-event editorial and a reader ticket giveaway competition through The Queensland Times, reaching almost 30,000 readers.
• Radio advertising and ticket giveaway competition through River 94.9FM, creating a triangle of listeners from the Sunshine Coast, to Toowoomba to the Gold Coast
• Billboard advertising on the Ipswich Motorway at Goodna aimed at capturing well over 100,000 vehicles per day traveling on the western commuter corridor into Brisbane.

""Focusing on Ipswich represents a new tactic for Polocrosse, which has traditionally marketed itself to horse enthusiasts. However they all know the Cup is on, what we have to do is to let sports enthusiasts know that this is happening and that it's a great day out. This will be the only chance to see a defending Australian team contest its world title on home soil in 2007,"" Mr Fraser added.

Eight nations will contest the Ridley Polocrosse World cup at Morgan Park, Warwick 23:29 April see www.polocrosse.com.au/worldcup.