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 more than 75% of households using cable TV subscriptions. “And it’s not eroding at the same rate we are seeing in the U.S.,” Swartz explains in this conference recap interview for Beet.TV.
A frequent Beet.TV contributor, Swartz is CEO and Founder of Furious Corp., which specializes in linear TV and video yield optimization and has clients in Canada. She says that research shows similarities in Canada to audience behaviors in the United States and Western Europe, “Which means there’s a huge opportunity for brands here to take lessons they’ve learned in other markets that may have more data, may be more mature, be introducing audience-based products sooner and bring that to Canada and execute with great precision sooner.”
She cites as examples a real-time buying platform by Corus Entertainment that encompasses 25 of its specialty TV networks and the introduction of the data-enabled RED solution from Rogers Media.
“Both of them are innovating and bringing new products to market that are elevating the value and ROI of television,” Swartz says. “Stepping on the traditional business models of an Upfront-driven marketplace and taking risks in order to innovate and deliver more ROI.”
Although she hears complaints about the amount of friction required in buying TV and media overall, Swartz believes the sentiment exists in Canada to collaborate, plus a “hunger to innovate and a desire to continue to grow this market.”
She doesn’t see the kind of industry protectionism that exists in the United States, where “fear and uncertainty” still prevail.
There is much to be learned from the growth of advanced TV in other markets as Canadian broadcasters pave their future, according to Swartz.
“I think that creates a Petri dish of opportunity for brands and marketers for their agencies to begin to start to spend dollars in different places or allocate net new money in different ways as these sellers are coming to market with new opportunities and new innovations.”
This video was recorded in Toronto at the Future of TV Advertising Forum. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Finecast. For more segments from Toronto, please visit this page.
