New Orleans — What’s in a name?
Project Canoe — the code name for the six-operator initiative to provide a unified, national platform for placing interactive and targeted TV ads — is supposed to imply teamwork. You know, everyone rowing together in the same direction.
But to Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett, who moderated last Tuesday’s general session panel on advanced advertising at The Cable Show, the appellation sounds somewhat … preindustrial.
He kicked off the panel by reading a dictionary definition: “A primitive, unstable boat traditionally made from bark or a dug-out or burned-out log, generally used for navigating very calm, very small waters.”
Moffett then deadpanned: “So, welcome to the future of advertising.”
Whereupon Cox Communications president Pat Esser queried, “Was that a satellite dish?”
