Next gen addressable TV to land in Canada

Bell Media’s new offering delivers on the promise of mass personalization; less complexity and more granularity

Set-top boxes and their associated internet connections have long promised advertisers a wealth of data. But its complexity has kept it out of reach. Until now. 

Launching this September, Bell Media’s new addressable TV product turns that data-driven dream into reality. The first product of its kind in Canada, addressable TV harnesses Bell’s wealth of privacy compliant first party data, effectively bringing the personalization of digital to the mass reach of broadcast television. 

“Let’s say you and I are next-door neighbours watching the exact same show,” explains Sabrina Segal, Bell Media’s director of advanced advertising and national sales. “In traditional television, we’d see the exact same ads. With addressable TV, we get an advertising experience tailored to our individual households.” 

What makes it possible for Bell Media to create a truly competitive addressable TV offer is its premium content and the quality and granularity of Bell’s first party data. “We’re collecting data from more than 10 million mobile subscribers, 200 million Canadian devices, 3 million set-top boxes and 4 million internet households,” she explains further. “All of that data gets pooled together, and everybody is then grouped based on their behavior. The data is refreshed daily, so it’s timely and highly accurate.” 

Let’s say a major retailer wants to sell more shovels. Bell Media can pull data on how many times one of its customers has gone online to shop for shovels. That creates an anonymous profile specific to whomever an advertiser is trying to reach, and then targets that profile addressably on television.

The service will launch with an initial 19 pre-built segments and another 51 to come. As the inventory expands, Bell Media will add Environics Prizm and ThinkTV segments, and also the ability to build custom segments for different advertisers. 

“There’s also going to be an option in the future, like we are currently doing with SAM and Bell DSP,  where we can marry a marketer’s data set with ours inside a ‘clean room’ to ensure privacy compliance,” says Segal. “So if you are in possession of a very rich dataset, we can marry it with ours to make the segments even richer and more specific.”

Does this powerful new capability make addressable TV a threat to linear televisions’ effectiveness as a mass communications channel? “You’d think that they were contradictory, but this is not one thing replacing another. Both are needed. For example, we would never suggest slicing and dicing the Super Bowl audience. You want to make sure the message continues to hit as many people as possible for the largest brand awareness campaigns. This adds intelligence and options so that marketers can do both.”

Advertisers can continue to drive mass reach at the top of the funnel. As they move down, they’ll want to start hitting a narrower target. That’s when it’s time to start really zeroing in on a particular audience, and addressable TV will allow them to do that.

Segal says that ultimately, this translates into improved ROI. “You’ll be able to tailor your message to a very specific audience, and there will be less waste,” she notes. “It’s hard to provide mass reach to advertisers within the current suite of Bell Media’s digital assets, but with addressable TV, you’ll be able to extend your reach to a broad base of viewers across different platforms with one comprehensive video solution.” 

Another major new benefit is real-time reporting, something not previously available for traditional TV advertising clients, who had to wait for the season to be over to see how effectively their campaign performed. With addressable TV, optimization is possible on the fly.

All of this begs the question: will addressable TV be more expensive than traditional?

“It’s a legitimate question,” says Segal. “It’s really about the cost of converting the customer. Addressable TV optimizes every dollar spent, increasing efficiency exponentially. So, when you do a cost analysis post-campaign, the ROI is totally evident.”

Learn more about Bell Media’s addressable TV solution here.

Contact info:

Bell Media Sales

AdvertiseWithUs@bellmedia.ca