Canoe Serves 10 Billionth Ad (That's Billion With A 'B')

Cable TV industry backed television ad technology developer Canoe Ventures has served its 10 billionth ad impression into national TV programming, the company announced early this morning.

The milestone is significant for several reasons -- including the fact that many in the industry thought the company had become a lame duck since restructuring in February 2012, laying off most of its staff and essentially abandoning its attempts to develop an interactive TV advertising marketplace.

Instead, the company doubled down on developing an ad-serving marketplace to help advertisers and cable operators create liquidity around the vast array of unsold video-on-demand (VOD) inventory.

Currently, Canoe’s Dynamic Ad Insertion technology is active across an array of cable operators in more than 30 million digital cable TV households, inserting TV advertising into more than 50 broadcast and cable networks.

Canoe says another 70 networks currently are in the “on-boarding” process and should have dynamic ad insertion capabilities soon.

“This volume comes from both returning marketers and new advertisers who are finding the quality of cable VOD a viable option in their media mix,” Canoe CEO Joel Hassell said in a statement announcing the 10 billionth ad served.
9 comments about "Canoe Serves 10 Billionth Ad (That's Billion With A 'B')".
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  1. Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, November 11, 2014 at 8:57 a.m.

    Doing the math, if Canoe has been serving ads since March of 2012, that means the average American sees one Canoe-served ad a month. That's one with an "O."

  2. Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., November 11, 2014 at 9:06 a.m.

    @ a.k.a. Darrin Stephens, I believe Canoe has been serving VOD ads longer than that.

  3. Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, November 11, 2014 at 9:23 a.m.

    @ Joe Mandese, so then Canoe has been serving something less than one ad per month per American.

  4. Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., November 11, 2014 at 9:29 a.m.

    @ a.k.a. Darrin Stephens, I'm no math whiz, but your arithmetic seems right to me. Let me make two observations: 1 - In TV advertising inventory, the best metric may not be volume, but value. TV has always been sold as a scarcity model, so there's a double-edged sword associated with unlocking an untapped supply of TV ad impressions, unless you can justify commensurate value to the supply side. 2 - If what your earlier statement is true, that the average American "sees" one Canoe-served ad a month, that would be extremely valuable in an era when it's increasingly hard to determine whether consumers are seeing or being influenced by advertising.

  5. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics, November 11, 2014 at 9:55 a.m.

    It's always fun to play with numbers. For example, if Canoe has been operating for 24 months, with an average coverage of, say, 20 million homes ( rather than the "current" figure which translates into 34million ), then this works out to about 20 ads served to an average home within its coverage base per month. Since a typical viewer is "watching" only half of the time when a household set is tuned in, this lowers the monthly rate per viewer to roughly 10 "exposures" for Canoe advertisers since 2012. How does this compare with the probable commercial dosage of the same people for all ad messages? I would estimate that the typical person in Canoe covered homes had an opportunity to see 4800 commercials per month, including the 10 supplied by Canoe. Which goes to show that big numbers aren't always as impressive as they seem.

  6. Eric Mathewson from WideOrbit, November 11, 2014 at 11:30 a.m.

    Hi Joe:

    For perspective, WideOrbit serves approximately 5 Billion TV Ad impressions per DAY or about 15 Ad impressions per DAY per average American.

  7. Chris Pizzurro from Canoe, November 12, 2014 at 8:19 a.m.

    Chris from Canoe here. Good dialog. Thanks.
    The intent of the messaging was mainly that of a "turn-around story". Second was that, as Joe points out and in my CEO's quote, VOD can now be "a viable option in their media mix" (Programmers have avails and Buyers like options). And while Linear TV serving certainly has a jump on VOD, and broadband video is coming into view, we at Canoe think TV still has a bright future with VOD options in the mix.

  8. Timothy Ware from Tremor Video, November 12, 2014 at 12:06 p.m.

    Well said Chris. Congrats on the milestone. This is good news for the greater good of advancing the antiquated Television advertising marketplace. As they say, 'all boats rise with the tide' and Canoe's (and your) perseverance should be applauded. Onward!

  9. Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, November 12, 2014 at 3:14 p.m.

    More fun with numbers: The Reelz channel, a low-rated cable network served a billion ad impressions in the month of October 2014 alone.

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