• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 31, 2009

Canoe Ventures is close to launching a program where a national cable network can deliver one ad in Denver and a different one in Miami at the same time.

Known as addressable advertising, the program would allow Macy's, for example, to air spots for winter coats in some markets and separate ones for bathing suits in others. The two spots would air during the same 30-second gaps on TNT or USA.

Canoe CEO David Verklin said geographically targeted ads will begin running within six weeks under the company's Community Addressable Messaging (CAM) initiative. It will be Canoe company's first addressable advertising product. Verklin said he has had conversations with up to five cable networks that are interested in the opportunity and expects to seal deals soon.

Canoe has built a national footprint of some 2,400 geographies, or cable zones, where different ads can be delivered. The footprint reaches 60 million homes, and under the addressable CAM system, one piece of creative would run in about 42 million homes and the other in the remaining 18 million.

Separately, Verklin said Canoe later this year will launch its first interactive advertising application that will allow a viewer to click through to a "Web-like page" to watch a video or gain access to a coupon.

To be sure, Verklin said the initial rollout of the addressable CAM platform is not the "holy grail" that Canoe is pursuing. That will come when ads can be targeted down to a household level -- with relevant creative running in different homes based on factors such as income level or number of female teenagers.

Verklin, the former head of agency Carat, provided an update on Canoe's initiatives during a keynote address on Tuesday at an Advertising Research Foundation event in New York.

Canoe is a partnership of the six largest cable operators (which together have put up an estimated $125 million-plus in seed money), which is looking to transform television advertising, partly by providing a national addressable ad platform.

The company is also developing interactive ad systems that can be deployed across its footprint. And it is exploring ways to harness data from millions of set-top boxes -- perhaps up to 30 million -- that can provide the insight into viewing patterns that advertisers crave.

"Unlocking the value of cable's two-way digital infrastructure," Verklin said of Canoe's prospects.

While cable operators have offered advertisers access to addressable advertising and other options on a local level, Canoe is looking to go coast to coast.

"Canoe is about national television commercials," Verklin said. "This is not about spot TV."

Canoe on Tuesday announced that in conjunction with CableLabs it has developed standards for the six MSOs, which will allow advertisers to seamlessly run addressable and interactive ads across them.

On the interactive advertising front, Canoe expects to launch a national platform later this year that will allow a viewer to make a "request for information." So, a consumer might click (or "telescope") from a 30-second spot about car insurance to a Web-like page with more information or a coupon.

It might allow a viewer watching an ad for a film to click through to a site where the full trailer can be seen.

Over time, Canoe is looking to move to "t-commerce" or the long-held promise of shopping via TV. (In some sense, that first gained buzz a decade ago, with the prospect that a "Friends" viewer could use the remote control to buy the sweater Jennifer Aniston was wearing during the broadcast.)

"Want to order ... the specialty pizza that Papa John's just advertised?" Verklin said. "Click the order button on the screen and the order will be sent to the nearest Papa John's location and then delivered."

On the data collection front, Verklin said Canoe can help fill a gap in the Nielsen ratings. With so many networks having limited distribution, the Nielsen sample often fails to track them.

Verklin estimated that as many of a third of all commercials are not rated. "They are simply not measured," he said.

But set-top box data collected from perhaps 30 million Canoe homes can provide details on what happens with those spots in that footprint.

"The set-top-box data provides a better snapshot of the American audience, and with that data, we will be able to provide agencies with a number for every commercial and truly capture the audience diversity," he said.