In its early existence, Canoe paddled against a stiff technological current in its quest to deliver interactive television ads. Since its pivot in the last five years to dynamic ad insertion for video-on-demand, the current has been flowing strongly in its direction.
“We’re happy to say that it’s a thriving business,” says Chris Pizzurro, Canoe’s head of business development, sales and marketing.
Thriving to the tune of having served more than 100 billion ads through its platform, Pizzurro explains in this interview with Beet.TV.
Canoe was originally formed by Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. Its daunting mission was to deliver interactive ads to households but, among other challenges, there were too many technological hurdles in dealing with cable and satellite operators.
When it pivoted to dynamic ad insertion, the emphasis was on casting a big footprint. “Since this is TV you need to have scale to matter,” says Pizzurro. Canoe now serves ads in video-on-demand programming to 36 million homes across Charter, Comcast and Cox. More than 100 TV networks make their inventory available through Canoe.
“We run an average of 4,000 campaigns through the platform for all those networks on any given month,” Pizzurro adds.
Canoe’s 2017 Q3 Insights Report shows 5.7 million ad impressions served in the third quarter, with the overwhelming majority of them mid-roll. Saturday and Sunday were the busiest days, followed by Monday and Friday. There were a total of 3,208 campaigns, 24% of them network tune-in ads. Overall, VOD ad impressions were up 49%, as Fierce Cable reports.
Beyond scale, Canoe started out touting its solution as “a trustworthy, transparent place to move dollars.” It was clear about the impressions it guaranteed delivery of and “that went a long way in the marketplace.”
As with other aspects of the advanced TV landscape, the delivery of impressions is increasingly accompanied by advertisers wanting to link those impressions to business outcomes. This has produced studies on brand lift, recall and other KPI’s that have helped to increase overall campaign volume.
Whereas an agency might have started by having one of its clients using Canoe, “Now we have seven or eight of their clients that are running through the platform. So it’s showing returns for everyone,” says Pizzzuro.
This video is part of a series of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Advanced Advertising conference held during NYC TV Week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by 4C Insights. Please find additional videos on this page.
