Canoe Honored with Innovation Award from the Direct Marketing Association

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Canoe Ventures, the advanced television joint venture of the nation's leading cable companies, has been named a 2011 Innovation Award winner by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and received the honor at the DMA 2011 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Boston yesterday.

The DMA Innovations Awards are determined by a distinguished panel of judges who review nominations extolling advancements in marketing technology. The innovations may be new-to-market offerings, standing solutions addressing complex business problems, market-leading solutions, and/or new approaches that improve the efficiency or effectiveness of direct marketing programs.

“The proliferation of leading-edge solutions and technologies has made this the toughest year of selections in the three years since the program started,” said Bruce Biegel, managing director, Winterberry Group, and an Innovation Awards judge. “We are extremely proud of the winners, as I know their solutions will be the new game changing moments in marketing technology.”

Canoe is a winner in the DMA's “Digital Media Marketing” category for its RFI (Request For Information) product, a national interactive television (ITV) application that allows for the enhancement of advertising with interactive overlays that allow viewers to request additional samples, coupons, information or other offers with simple selections using their remote. RFI makes it possible for marketers to combine the unparalleled emotional power of television advertising with direct marketing tactics, transforming advertising from monologue to dialogue and moving consumers from intent to action.

“National interactive TV service is a significant leap forward in the capabilities available to direct marketers and advertisers who use television,” said Kathy Timko, Canoe's CEO. “With our RFI product, advertisers can connect directly with interested viewers while enhancing brand factors that are good for their business including awareness, opinion and purchase intent. We are pleased to receive this honor from the DMA on behalf of the cable companies who founded us and who collaborated to make national ITV a reality.”

Canoe already has the largest ITV platform in the nation, reaching more than 22 million highly desirable, advanced-use digital cable households; and the platform is still growing. National programming networks committed to enhancing their programming with interactivity enabled by Canoe include AMC, The Style Network, E!, Bravo, Discovery Channel, History Channel and USA Network.

About Canoe Ventures

Canoe Ventures is in the business of better television. Founded as a joint venture by the leading cable television operators in America, Canoe has created the largest national, interactive platform on television to help marketers, programmers, distributors and viewers extend the curiosity, interest, and desire that television creates into the next connected and measurable step - immediately, powerfully, and interactively. Canoe solutions are at work in more than 20 mm US households. Canoe is headquartered in New York, with advanced technology operations and collaborative labs in Colorado. canoeventures.com.