Bell Media has officially launched Addressable TV (ATV), making it the first Canadian media company to offer addressability on linear channels through a Canadian broadcast distributor, in addition to VOD content on CTV, CTV2, Noovo and select English and French specialty channels.

The product is initially being delivered through the Bell Fibe TV app across connected TV, mobile and web platforms, and later this year via next-gen set top boxes.

“Absolutely the biggest story is the fact that it can be done on linear TV, which has tremendous scale,” Sabrina Segal, Bell Media’s director of advanced advertising and national sales tells MiC. “That’s a real benefit to an advertiser because it will increase their return on media investment and reach conversions, depending on whatever KPI they are looking for.

“Obviously, they want to reach someone who is more relevant to the particular campaign they’re running. By leveraging the scale and the premium offering that it already is, and applying personalization, and data from the digital industry, makes ATV a very powerful product.”

ATV provides a personalized ad experience to specific households or devices based on demographics and behaviourial data across VOD, livestreams and linear content.

Bell’s first-party privacy-compliant data drives the targetability through 19 pre-built audience segments, with the option to build custom segments using Bell Analytics. The first 19 segments are the ones where Bell has seen the most scale. More than 50 Bell first-party segments, as well as those from Environics and Thinktv will be added in coming months.

Addressable TV ads are now available through a Bell Media sales rep as a managed service, however programmatic via the Bell DSP will be available in coming months.