Bell Media announced today its entry into the programmatic advertising market via a partnership with Index Exchange and the launch of a private programmatic marketplace for preferred Bell Media clients. The programmatic offering features all of Bell Media’s top-quality brands, including its premium digital display and video inventory, now available for the first time through real-time bidding and programmatic reserve.

Bell Media’s new private programmatic marketplace is a fully customized combination of automation and data from Index Exchange. Aimed at helping marketers apply data and automation to premium media inventory, the service also delivers safeguards to ensure that automated transactions are handled transparently.

“Our move to embrace programmatic comes at a time when advertisers are increasingly demanding premium content for their programmatic buys,” said Stuart Garvie, President, Bell Media Sales. “In the early days of programmatic buying, the focus was on technology at the expense of quality inventory. Today, with our private, premium marketplace, we are pleased to marry top-tier programmatic technology with the high-quality, fraud-free display and video inventory that our advertisers expect and deserve.”

“We are delighted to welcome Bell Media into programmatic; together we are going to help shape and accelerate the Canadian programmatic landscape,” said Andrew Casale, President and CEO, Index Exchange. “Buyers have learned the hard way that not all impressions are created equal, having witnessed first-hand the dangers of ad fraud and non-brand-safe inventory. We expect Bell Media’s premium inventory to be in extremely high demand and we are thrilled that they have trusted us to make it available to the market.”

With more than 10 of Canada’s top media buying companies already connected to the platform, Bell Media clients get exclusive access to the company’s premium inventory with the option to programmatically target specific audiences when the ad runs, ensuring they get the scale and the placements they want. Bell Media’s programmatic reserve allows clients to secure high-quality inventory with efficiency and targeting of programmatic as well as the reliable scale of a direct buy.

“We’re delighted to add Bell Media’s premium inventory to our extensive pool of Canadian publishers,” said Tom Fotheringham, General Manager at Accuen, Omnicom Media Group’s programmatic agency. “Our advertisers are keen to have first choice of premium inventory across screens and formats and we value publisher-direct inventory and the curation and control it affords us. Adding Bell Media display and video inventory is a huge win, giving our advertisers more control over the media buy and allowing for better performance and qualified audience delivery.”