• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, June 10, 2016

This was a banner week for media news coming from Canada. Earlier this week, AOL announced a partnership with Rogers Media to form a programmatic TV (PTV) marketplace in Canada. And also this week, Bell Media announced it will use Videology’s PTV technology to enhance planning capabilities across its entire TV and digital video portfolio. The Bell deal will offer enhanced targeting capabilities by using first- and third-party data. The technology provides the ability to execute single campaigns across multiple devices and inventory channels holistically.

And that’s not all. Videology said it will integrate Rogers Media’s linear TV inventory into the company’s DETV software, allowing for programmatic access and the ability to use data for advanced targeting capabilities. Through that partnership, Videology will be able to overlay advertiser data on top of Rogers Media’s proprietary household and subscriber data sets. Videology’s platform will then build custom linear TV advertising plans in real time focusing on shows, dayparts and networks that index highly against the advertiser’s target audience. Videlology says plans will be based on advertising objectives, including optimized reach, concentration or frequency.

These developments are significant, as they demonstrate the TV industry’s embrace of technology in advertising.  “As TV and digital video advertising converge, marketers are looking for new ways to manage campaigns holistically and bring digital’s precision to their linear TV campaigns. Our partnership with Rogers Media brings their linear inventory into a programmatic environment, which allows for enhanced data use and a much deeper level of addressability in targeting,” Ryan Ladisa, managing director, Videology Canada, told RTBlog via email.

The advantages for Bell are that it will now have a platform that connects its linear and digital inventory. This will allow for cross-platform reach and better reach and frequency management holistically. This is something advertisers are demanding given media fragmentation and how people are consuming content. The goal is to reduce waste and increase efficiency.

Of the benefits, Stuart Garvie, president, Bell Media Sales, shared with RTBlog via email: “As consumers continue to shift their content consumption across a variety of devices, it’s important the TV ecosystem evolve to bring advanced advertising solutions with data, measurement, cross-platform reach and addressability. Working with Videology, we’re able to offer strategies that address the new consumer journey, regardless of the platform or device.”

As for the Rogers deal, by making a large swath of its inventory available programmatically, the company shows it’s embracing technology platforms to help it deliver higher yield. The deal will allow advertisers to apply data to their linear TV campaigns, which makes them more focused on specific consumers. Better targeting will presumably mean that the right messages get to the right consumers.  

"Agencies and clients have been asking us for more automation around the TV ecosystem.  We've mastered it in digital, and now it's time to unleash the power of data in the decisioning process, and this new relationship with Videology allows us to do that,” Al Dark, senior vice president, sales, Rogers Media, told RTBlog via email.