Behind the Curtain: Canoe Hoping to Reach 10mln in 2 Years

Canoe Ventures should reach 10mln addressable subs in the next 18-24 months. That projection came from Canoe vp, product development John Collins after some prodding during an info session on Canoe Mon. It was a late addition to CTAM Summit‘s schedule, with much of the audience standing for an hour to hear what’s in store for Canoe. One of the first things the MSO jv is working on is creative versioning, creating ways for advertisers to place different ad spots in each existing cable zone. Tests for this will be underway in the next 60-90 days. "This is a baby step to household addressability," explained Canoe’s newly named CMO Vicki Lins. Ultimate addressability would give advertisers the ability to put cat litter ads only in homes with cats, and so forth. At another panel, Group M, North America pres/CEO Marc Goldstein said Canoe’s efforts to make targeted ad insertion work across millions of addressable boxes "are the kinds of steps…that will get us to the kind of distribution numbers that we know our advertisers are looking for." Michael Kubin, evp, Invidi Technologies, said he expects delays as the industry works through "understandable" privacy concerns because it "doesn’t get any more sensitive" than to track set-top data. Other interesting Canoe tidbits shared include that while the venture is working with MSOs now, it eventually plans to reach out to other distribution platforms, including satellite. Canoe, owned by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House, was created to provide interactive and targeted ad services across MSOs and networks. Lins acknowledged that some have questioned how successful a jv will be given the history of other joint ventures (think Pivot), but said the mandate here is what makes it so viable. "This is it. This is our shot as an industry to stay in the game," she said. The session was created to help explain what Canoe is—and what it isn’t. Canoe CEO David Verklin, who has been on the job for about 3 months, has said that some are looking to him to cure world hunger, Collins joked, referring to how some expect Canoe to solve everything related to VOD and more. One thing Canoe is most definitely not, Lins said, is a sales organization. The main idea behind Canoe is to help networks enhance commercial inventory, with 3 areas of focus—addressability, interactive advertising and data. If the standing-room-only crowd doesn’t give you a clear picture of how excited the industry is about Canoe, perhaps this will: Canoe sent requests for information to 60 companies and received responses from 55. — Dana Runnells of Comcast Spotlight will be joining Canoe, where she’ll head up PR.