TORONTO — Bell Media today announced a partnership with ad tech company Xandr, a business unit within AT&T, to create a proprietary omnichannel demand-side platform (DSP) for advertisers.
The new Bell Media product is being branded as SAM DSP and is an enhancement to the company’s strategic audience management (SAM) suite of data-enabled tools for marketers, says Bell Media’s press release.
Powered by Xandr’s buying platform, Xandr Invest, SAM DSP “will enable Canadian advertisers to easily plan, run and measure scaled, targeted campaigns using premium inventory over multiple platforms and channels,” reads the press release.
“We are building a best-in-class self-serve platform for our advertising partners that brings together industry-leading data assets and technology,” said Nauby Jacob, senior vice-president of product platforms for Bell Media, in the release. “Combined with our SAM platform, Xandr’s end-to-end technology offers critical benefits and capabilities to advertisers. Employing machine learning and our privacy-compliant data insights, it’s an innovative approach that provides the efficiency, transparency and reporting required to maximize advertisers’ linear and digital investments and achieve business outcomes that matter.”
Available to all advertisers and agency partners in Canada, the SAM DSP platform will also be used by Bell Canada for its own programmatic advertising needs, says the release.
The agreement also sees an expansion of Bell Media and Xandr’s relationship on the sell-side, to enable greater scale, transparency and ease-of-use for buyers on the SAM DSP.
“As more premium inventory moves from direct channels to programmatic channels, advertisers are moving from open exchanges to private marketplaces as they look for better and more reliable access to premium inventory. Bell Canada is leveraging Xandr’s sell-side platform (SSP), Xandr Monetize, as a preferred SSP for Bell Private Marketplaces across programmatic inventory,” says the release.
The other major platform in this space is Corus Entertainment’s Cynch, which it and Rogers Sports & Media offer to agencies as a self-serve buying platform.
UPDATE April 29: After Bell’s announcement Wednesday, we asked Corus for its reaction and a spokesperson reminded Cartt.ca in an email on April 29th its investment in advanced advertising began nearly 10 years ago “and we maintain our belief in solutions that make it easier for clients to buy across all broadcasters. We are encouraged by any developments that position the Canadian TV industry to be more competitive, which SAM DSP does,” reads the email.
“Industry solutions remain a top priority for Corus and we continue to push for wider adoption of common advanced audience segments and the Cynch buying platform, which is now being used by both Corus and Rogers. Cynch was Canada’s first self-serve platform for buying TV when it launched in 2018, and, over time, will include all premium video inventory including set top box VOD and digital video.
“It is our understanding that Bell plans to bring together their TV and digital advertising inventory in SAM DSP (as we plan to with Cynch), however we do not want to speculate on what else they may aim to accomplish.”
