The numbers don't lie: TV has some ground to make up.

Report after report shows that digital, specifically mobile advertising, is set to overtake TV for ad investment. Despite high-profile reservations about digital supply chains, brand safety and viewability, digital dollars continue to grow – often at what feels like TV's expense.

Bell Media's new approach? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

The media company recently unveiled its new Strategic Audience Management tool, known as SAM. The tool uses NLogic data to find more specific behaviour-based segments for its audience members, rather than selling broadly to groups such as 18 to 49 or 25 to 54.

Darryl Coburn, VP of national video sales at Bell Media, explains.

"As we're seeing the TV landscape change, there's more pressure on our business because of the power of the digital duopoly [Google and Facebook] we're all aware of in the marketplace. We're getting pressure from advertisers and agencies to offer up opportunities to target TV audiences in a very different way, to get a little more granular. If we want to compete with big digital properties, we have to come up with something that can offer up more specific targeting."

That has resulted in the last two-and-a-half years  being dedicated to developing SAM.

Segments include groups like "Principal Grocery Shoppers," "Beauty Spenders," "Fashionistas" and "Auto Intenders."

Coburn (pictured right) did acknowledge that this might seem to be in conflict with one of the key strengths TV touts – that it is indeed a mass-appeal media. But he insists that SAM is not replacing traditional buying, but rather offering a different approach to buying. "At the end of the day, the huge benefit of television is that it has mass reach and broad demos, and clients are still looking for that. We predict that a large percentage of our business is still going to be driven through the traditional approach to buying television. But this does offer up the opportunity to get a little more granular when the situation is appropriate."

That's the approach for SAM 1.0. But Coburn says the telco is already looking forward to SAM 2.0 – and that will require more moving parts and some time for audiences to embrace it.

"At some point, the goal would be to have the ability to layer in Bell set-top-box data, as well as our mobility data," he explains. STB data would allow insight into viewership habits, while mobility would be more "behavioural." So far, attempts by Bell to request more info from mobility and cable customers have not been met with great favourability on public forums, although many have pointed out that Bell has been responsible by asking consumers to share their data.

Sarah Thompson, chief strategy officer, Mindshare Canada, says that first-party data from Canadians can be a major asset to marketers. "We want to make sure the dollar we're investing on behalf of clients is valued on behalf of consumers so that the economics keep moving forward and we're all getting the things that we want out of that relationship. First-party data is extremely valuable, but we need to ensure we're providing value back to consumers," she says.

But transparency will always be one of the main issues with customers. "From a consumer perspective, demand should be put on our industry for those pieces to be put in place in addition to clarity on what are you using my information for."

Another goal for Coburn going forward is to create a client-facing user portal where they can go in and immediately see the details, lay their plan out and execute the buys themselves. "In a lot of ways, we'd like to simplify the process," he says.

Besides SAM, Bell Media is also upping its digital game with the launch of the CTV Superhub. The first phase of the new digital service was the deal it struck late last year with Sony, allowing it "essentially take over" the former Crackle library in Canada. Now known as the CTV Video and CTV Throwback offerings, Coburn says it gives clients more video inventory to access.

Eventually, he says, "the goal is to aggregate all Bell Media's English language content into one hub. Down the road, we'd want to add some of our specialty programming to it."

For now, Coburn says, Bell's priorities are on developing a platform that advertisers are going to enjoy using. "We want to give them access to different data points that live outside of what they've traditionally accessed for years leading up to this. There's a way for us to incorporate our first-party data set as part of that, and that's a great value proposition for our advertisers."