Perion sat down with Brandon Kirk, Vice President of Client Solutions at Rogers Sports & Media, to talk about DOOH in Canada, how programmatic has driven innovation and growth, and top priorities for their business this year.
1. Who is Rogers Sports and Media? Introduce the inventory and services you offer.
Rogers Sports & Media (RSM) is one of Canada’s leading media companies, spanning television, radio, digital media, and OOH. We connect brands with Canadian audiences at scale across these platforms. In the OOH space specifically, RSM operates a premier Digital Out of Home (DOOH) network, offering advertisers an extensive inventory of digital screens and innovative advertising solutions that engage consumers in the real world. Our DOOH inventory includes over 25,000 digital screens and placements nationwide, reaching approximately 30 million Canadians per month. This inventory is diversified across high-traffic venues and environments, ensuring we can engage audiences in many contexts. Beyond just providing ad space, RSM offers full-service support – from campaign strategy and creative development to audience targeting and performance measurement. We serve advertisers across a broad range of industries (including consumer packaged goods, entertainment, retail, quick-service restaurants (QSR), technology, real estate, gaming & lottery, finance, education, government, and professional services), and we tailor our solutions to meet each sector’s unique marketing needs.
2. What venues do you operate in?
We operate across a wide variety of venues and environments to capture consumer attention during their daily journeys. Our key venue networks include:
- Large-Format Outdoor Displays: High-impact digital billboards positioned along major highways and in urban centres . These reach large audiences of commuters and city shoppers, providing broad visibility and brand stature. Of note with our Allvision partnership we deliver close to 50% of the available large format digital inventory in Canada’s largest market – Toronto CMA.
- Campus Network: Digital screens across 130+ college and university campus locations nationwide. This is Canada’s largest campus media network, reaching millions of students in high dwell time campus common areas.
- Bars & Restaurants: Screens in close to 1,000 bars, pubs, and restaurants across Canada. This includes an innovative tabletop screen network (through our Oongalee partnership) with 17,000+ interactive tabletop screens in popular restaurant chains. These venues offer extremely high dwell times (often 60+ minutes per visit), allowing brands to engage patrons when they’re relaxed and receptive.
- Salons, Spas, and Barbershops: Displays in beauty salons, spas, and wellness clinics (primarily reaching female audiences) and in barbershops and men’s grooming locations (reaching male audiences). This specialized network allows advertisers to connect with consumers in a personal setting with long dwell times (for example, while waiting during appointments).
By maintaining this diverse mix of venue types, RSM’s DOOH network can effectively reach consumers during work, study, play, and travel – covering the full spectrum of daily life and consumer touchpoints
3. What regions do you operate in?
RSM’s out-of-home network has national coverage across Canada, with a strong presence in all major regions. Our footprint spans the country’s largest cities and beyond. We have significant concentrations of inventory in metropolitan areas such as the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa, ensuring we cover the key urban markets from coast to coast.
Our networks also extend into many mid-sized cities and communities across various provinces. This means we can execute both nationwide campaigns and highly localized targeting. Whether an advertiser wants to blanket urban centres or focus on specific regions – for example, reaching university towns in Atlantic Canada or commuters in Western Canada – we have the coverage and flexibility to support those goals. In essence, wherever in Canada an advertiser is looking to connect with audiences out-of-home, RSM can deliver that reach.
4. What should advertisers know about your network?
Advertisers choosing RSM’s network gain several key advantages:
- Extensive Scale and Reach: We operate one of Canada’s largest DOOH networks, offering unparalleled scale. With tens of thousands of screens, campaigns can achieve both broad national exposure and finely targeted local presence.
- Diverse, High-Impact Venues: Our screens are strategically placed in environments with high dwell times and high engagement – from busy highways and downtown squares to campuses, restaurants, and salons. This diversity means advertisers can reach consumers at multiple touchpoints throughout the day, reinforcing messaging in different contexts.
- Data-Driven Targeting: RSM’s network is underpinned by Rogers’s robust first-party data (our R.E.D. insights platform) and advanced targeting capabilities. We can deliver ads based on demographics, location, time-of-day, and even contextual triggers like weather or live events. This data-centric approach ensures advertisers can pinpoint the audiences that matter most, increasing campaign precision and impact.
- Cross-Media Integration: As part of Rogers Sports & Media, we offer unique opportunities to integrate out-of-home with other media channels. Advertisers can leverage our broader Rogers media ecosystem – including TV, streaming, radio, and digital – alongside DOOH for truly omnichannel campaigns. This cross-media synergy amplifies impact (for example, reinforcing a TV or online campaign with DOOH ads that reach the same audience during their commute or on campus). Our team can provide unified planning across channels and creative solutions that tie OOH into the bigger brand story.
- Innovation and Partnership: We pride ourselves on being an innovative, collaborative partner. From dynamic creative optimization to advanced measurement techniques, we continuously enhance our offerings. We work with advertisers to develop custom solutions – whether it’s a branded content takeover on our screens during a special event or interactive experiences on Oongalee’s tabletop displays. RSM is committed to staying at the forefront of DOOH technology and trends, all with the goal of maximizing ROI for our clients. When you work with us, you gain a partner that is proactive, tech-savvy, and dedicated to your campaign’s success.
5. How do you utilize the Perion platform today?
The Perion platform (formerly Hivestack) is a core component of our DOOH operations, and it has been instrumental in elevating how we deliver and optimize campaigns. By leveraging Perion’s full-stack programmatic DOOH and ad server technology, we’ve been able to streamline campaign execution across our entire network and target audiences with a new level of precision.
Firstly, the platform allows us to plan and run campaigns in real time with great flexibility. We can activate content across our screens through a single system, whether it’s for a direct-sold campaign or a programmatic buy.
We can plan and execute DOOH campaigns much like digital campaigns by selecting audience segments and letting the platform automatically find those viewers across our network. For instance, if an advertiser wants to reach tech-savvy young adults, we can define that audience and the platform will deliver the ads on screens and at times where that demographic is most likely present (such as on university campuses or in bars during certain hours).
6.How has the Perion header bidder helped optimize your programmatic revenue?
This has simplified our programmatic platforms significantly.
7. Can you discuss some of the top priorities for your business this year?
Data, Dynamic Content, and Smarter DOOH
We’re doubling down on data and dynamic content to make DOOH more relevant and responsive. With Rogers’ first-party data and trusted third-party sources, we start every campaign with deep audience insights—knowing which screens, locations, and times index highly for key demographics. This enables precise targeting and smarter scheduling.
On the creative side, a DCO focus allows ads to adjust automatically via a multitude of trigger options in real time. We’re also using live feeds—like NHL scores or Food Network recipe trends—to bring contextual relevance to screens and hold attention.
By combining data with real-time creative optimization, every impression becomes smarter and more meaningful—boosting engagement and delivering value to advertisers.
Branded Content Executions: Content + Context
Our content partnerships let us turn screens into storytelling platforms. With brands like the NHL, HGTV, Food Network, and Discovery, we embed trusted content into DOOH environments—creating moments that are both entertaining and brand-enhancing.
For example, NHL highlights and real-time scores during playoffs can be co-branded on highway screens, in bars or campus screens, bringing fans in and aligning brands with the energy of the game. Similarly, HGTV design tips or Food Network recipe clips can run in contextually relevant locations providing value to audiences and meaningful exposure for our partners.
These content-rich executions create a soft-sell moment where the brand shares the spotlight with content consumers enjoy. It’s not just ad space—it’s an experience. And it’s proving to keep eyes on screens longer and improve recall.
Modern Measurement: Proving DOOH’s Value
We’re tackling one of DOOH’s biggest challenges—measurement—with new tools and partners.
We’re also running brand lift and recall studies, measuring shifts in awareness, recall, and intent between exposed and unexposed audiences. These metrics highlight how DOOH builds brand equity and works in harmony with other media.
Ultimately, we’re bringing the same accountability to DOOH that advertisers expect from digital—making it easier to invest with confidence.
Strengthening OOH in Omnichannel Strategies
OOH is a vital piece of the omnichannel puzzle, and we’re focused on making it seamless to integrate. Our campaigns are coordinated with RSM’s TV, digital, radio and streaming platforms for synchronized messaging. We use audience data across channels to plan smarter—whether that’s retargeting mobile users after DOOH exposure or extending a digital audience into physical environments.
We also help advertisers see the full picture. Through case studies and insights, we show how DOOH amplifies campaigns—driving recall, increasing reach, and reinforcing brand messages in context-rich environments.
Looking ahead, we see ourselves not just as a media owner, but as a collaborative industry partner. We’re working with Perion and others to push innovation, build standards, and drive transparency.
RSM is committed to growing the DOOH industry together—leading with data, creativity, and a vision that puts advertisers, audiences, and the medium first.
