GroupM’s Garvie: Upfronts ‘Crippling’ Industry In Canada

TORONTO — It’s nearly half a year since the upfronts, the annual season where television companies tout their upcoming content slate in order to lock up advanced ad sales. But Stuart Garvie is still having nightmares about the process. The CEO of the world’s largest media buying agency, GroupM, in Canada says the process, which […]

 
 

How GroupM’s Rennie Wrings Results From Canada’s Constrained Media

TORONTO — It’s a smaller media market with a highly concentrated ownership – so how does a media agency make the best from Canada these days? In this video interview with Beet.TV, GroupM Canada chief investment officer Sebastian Rennie opens up on a two-pronged approach. “I think it’s about finding the combination of two things, […]

 
 

Vertical Integration Gives Rogers Media ‘Massive Data Lake’: SVP Dark

TORONTO – When you’re the biggest wireless company in Canada, plus one of the biggest Internet service providers and cable companies, you know a lot about Canadians as content consumers. “For the last four years, we’ve done an enormous amount of work creating a massive data lake, compiling all of that data in one massive […]

 
 

Corus Entertainment’s Marcus: Self-Serve TV Audience Buying In Beta, Addressable Faces Hurdles

TORONTO – Advertisers can target specific audiences on 24 of Corus Entertainment’s adult specialty stations via a self-serve advertising platform designed to ease buyer “pain points.” But while the technology would facilitate household addressability, Canadian regulations and other hurdles stand in the way, according to the company’s head of Advanced Advertising Sales, Barry Marcus. Powered […]

 
 

Canadian Research Shows Misconceptions, Attributes Of TV Viewing: Viacom’s Kurz

TORONTO – Turns out that Canadian television viewers aren’t much different from those in other countries. Research shows that in-home viewing promotes “household bonding” while providing a much-desired cultural connection to the outside world. Not that the advertising industry knew this instinctively. In fact, it’s been looking in the wrong direction for awhile, according to […]

 
 

Volkswagen Finds TV Ads’ Value In Canadian Addressable Campaign

TORONTO — If you are an auto maker, aiming the TV ads for your hard-wearing SUV at winter drivers in snowy North America may seem like ample targeting. But, when it marketed its new Atlas, Volkswagen Canada wanted to go a step farther. Recently, the company worked with Canadian telco and TV company Rogers to […]

 
 

Canada’s Rogers Lights Up “RED” For Addressable TV Ads

TORONTO — It’s now six months since Canadian TV and telco operator Rogers unveiled its shot toward the programmatic TV world, in the form of a data-enabled TV-buying product. Tn this video interview with Beet.TV, Rogers programmatic trading and data ad solutions head Rose Hutchison explains how Rogers Enabled Data (RED), launched in April, works – […]

 
 

Rogers Media Must Compete In North American Market: SVP Watson

TORONTO – Even though it has different television regulations, Canada is officially part of North America along with the United States. So as direct-to-consumer television offerings proliferate, companies like Rogers Media are trying to piece together the ever-shifting puzzle that is program acquisition and commissioning. “So what we need to look at here in Canada […]

 
 

Furious Corp’s Swartz Sees Collaboration, Innovation In Canadian TV Market

TORONTO – As she takes in the proceedings at the Future of TV Advertising Forum, Ashley J. Swartz sees a spirit of collaboration toward making television easier to buy along with a “petri dish of opportunity” for marketers. This “interesting construct of a market” with huge geography and “not a lot of people” still has […]

 
 

TV Is On Top, Digital Saturates Quickly: Ebiquity’s Campbell

TORONTO — It may be the most trackable medium out there, but how effective is digital ad advertising really? If you peek under the hood, maybe not as effective as many advertisers believe, says one executive who runs effectiveness for a global marketing consultancy. “In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ebiquity head of international effectiveness Mike […]

 
 

Netflix & Co. Competing At Both Ends Of Age Spectrum: Ampere’s Bisson

TORONTO — If you thought that the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu et al was all driven by younger, cord-cutting consumers, think again. SVODs are now saturated. And that means they are having to fight for new pockets of unconverted subscribers – older, much younger and everywhere in between. In this video interview […]

 
 

From The UK To Canada: Cadent’s Growing TV Connections

TORONTO — As Cadent’s technology powers the targeted-television advertising platform that pools the inventory of Sky and Virgin Media in the UK and Ireland, the company is busy helping to scale dynamic ad insertion in Canada. Among its tasks for Sky and Virgin are creating a “compliant, walled garden” to abide by GDPR privacy strictures, […]

 
 

New Set-Top Boxes Mean Imminent Scale For Addressable TV In Canada: Finecast’s Astley

TORONTO—Although Canada is behind the United States in the adoption of addressable linear television advertising—owing largely to inadequate set-top boxes—that’s going to change quickly. “Disruption is here” in the form of Netflix and other OTT providers, says Rich Astley, Global Chief Product Officer of GroupM’s Finecast agency. Canada is a “fascinating market and for many […]