By Josh Kolm and Patti Summerfield
Instacart Ads launches in Canada
Grocery delivery service Instacart is giving Canadian advertisers the opportunity to reach a growing pool of online shoppers with the launch of its ad offering north of the border.
Instacart Ads allows brands and media agencies to promote specific products on a cost-per-click basis across the platform – including areas for product search, new product discovery and “buy-it-again” experiences – based on insights from its first-party data.
Canada is the first international market Instacart has brought its ad offering to, having launched in the U.S. roughly a year ago.
Campaigns are managed through a self-serve ad manager, which allows advertisers to manage budgets, schedules, content and bids. Tools and applications within the ad manager include those from Instacart’s API partners, which include Pacvue, Flywheel, Perpetua, Quartile, Stackline and CommerceIQ.
Spotify brings interactive podcast ad format to Canada
Spotify’s newest ad experience, call-to-action cards (or CTA cards), are now available to advertisers in Canada, Australia, and the U.K. CTA cards were first launched in the U.S. earlier this year.
CTA cards are an interactive, multi-way experience powered by streaming. Through Spotify’s Streaming Ad Insertion, CTA cards appear in the Spotify app as soon as an ad begins playing in a podcast. As most listeners are often not looking at their phone while listening to a podcast, the card resurfaces the next time the user is exploring the Spotify app to make it easier to check out a brand, product or service they had previously heard while listening.
The format also features customizable texts and clickable calls to action, which means users no longer need to remember promo codes or URLs they heard during a podcast ad.
Hivestack OOH inventory now available on Yahoo’s DSP
Montreal-based programmatic OOH co. Hivestack has made its inventory of screens more accessible to advertisers by partnering with Yahoo.
Advertisers and their agencies can now access Hivestack’s DOOH inventory globally through Yahoo’s DSP. The integration with Hivestack’s SSP will allow real-time bidding through both open exchange and private marketplace deals.
Though Hivestack has its own DSP focused on DOOH, it has been increasingly making its inventory available through omnichannel DSPs to give advertisers and buyers more “one-stop” options to plan and conduct their programmatic OOH buys in the same place they are other platforms. Over the last 12 months, the company has made its inventory available through Xandr, The Trade Desk and MediaMath DSPs.
Nielsen joins TikTok’s Media Mix Modelling
Nielsen has signed on as one of the companies participating in TikTok’s new program to drive consistency and quality in its ad measurement.
First announced in April, TikTok’s Media Mix Modelling program was created to give marketers more insights to campaign performance on the platform. Working with various measurement partners, the company is developing different modelling techniques, with an eye towards consistency and offering a more streamlined process to advertisers that helps them understand the social platform’s impact within their broader media mix.
As partner, Nielsen will help TikTok build and scale its data processes, helping advertisers find insights to improve their advertising effectiveness.
Corus podcasts added to Spotify’s ad network
Corus Entertainment’s podcast network Curiouscast is joining Megaphone, Spotify’s enterprise podcasting platform, to host its full lineup of podcasts.
Megaphone is Spotify’s podcast hosting and publishing platform, which gives creators access to audience insights, monetization tools and dynamic ad insertion. It also gives advertisers access to ad inventory on shows hosted on the platform.
In addition to hosting all Curiouscast podcasts on Megaphone, Spotify will get access to select inventory on the shows to monetize via the Spotify Audience Network, an audio-first advertising marketplace that enables advertisers to connect with listeners both on and off Spotify.
SLAM Magazine releases Canadian edition
The NBA and SLAM Media have launched a special Canadian edition of SLAM Magazine in collaboration with Tangerine Bank.
The special edition celebrates 75 years of NBA basketball through a Canadian lens. It also marks SLAM’s first-ever international magazine with Metal Editions, metallic-embossed collectors editions that have become an in-demand component of SLAM’s merchandise and brand collections globally.
Published once or twice a year, SLAM Canada will feature a roster of both rising and veteran journalists who are tapped into Canada’s basketball community. For the first edition, several thousand copies will be available for sale, with 75 copies of the special edition available for each of the special covers created.
As an extension of its basketball sponsorship in Canada, Tangerine is the exclusive in-magazine advertiser. In QR codes throughout the magazine, it will also provide behind the scenes content from the cover shoot featuring Nurse, who is also one of the bank’s spokespeople.
Stingray adds Metro to retail media offering
Music and media company Stingray Group has made a big addition to its Stingray Retail Media Network by signing Metro and its network of approximately 1,100 food and pharmacy locations in Ontario and Quebec.
The agreement makes Stingray the exclusive sales rep for all in-store digital audio advertising within the Metro, Metro Plus, Super C, and Food Basics banners, as well as drugstores Jean Coutu and Brunet. Metro is already partnering with Stingray for its in-store audio but now it will also serve relevant ads in-store.
The offering first came to the Metro banner in Ontario in November, and is now expanding to other banners and in Quebec.
