NBCUniversal today (March 20) continued its efforts to reveal the way it plans to bring TV in keeping with digitally powered ad channels at One24, the newest edition of its annual technology and developer conference. Several announcements were made around advances in targeting, measurement, commerce and streaming experience because the media conglomerate prepares for its upfront presentation on May 13 and hosting the Summer Olympics.
Apart from those tentpoles, the gathering got here because the streaming wars enter a latest stage and battles over the long run of measurement intensify. Meanwhile, NBCU has reshaped its leadership ranks after several distinguished executives, including Linda Yaccarino and Kelly Abcarian, exited last 12 months.
“We want the behavior with TV to look more like digital. We want to look more like performance media,” said John Lee, chief data officer for promoting and partnerships at the corporate, at a press briefing upfront of One24. “Think about how with a paid search, paid social or programmatic campaign, you’re optimizing up to the second — it’s one among the explanations to do it. You can course-correct while it’s still happening. I feel that’s a pretty big behavior shift versus a set-it-and-forget-it, traditional mentality with TV.”
TV as performance media
Central to NBCUniversal’s proposition around performance is the combined power of its One Platform Total Audience (OPTA) media-planning and activation solution. First announced in January, OPTA allows advertisers to generate a media plan across linear and digital channels using greater than 300 audience segments that connect consumers, content, emotional responses and outcomes. In a nod to buzzy technology that has captured the industry’s attention for the past 12 months, the audience segments use a generative artificial intelligence engine that’s trained on NBCU’s video library and web content.
In beta tests during Q1, OPTA helped advertisers higher reach their desired audiences, with 48% more households in goal compared to using demographic proxies, per data shared on the press briefing. In addition, impressions were 28% more efficient.
The companion to OPTA is the just-unveiled One Platform Total Measurement (OPTM) framework that delivers insights and outcome-based measurement across the whole funnel, from awareness to conversion. OPTM focuses on optimizing mid-funnel measurement around consideration metrics like search engagement and site traffic.
Toyota piloted the brand new audience and measurement capabilities, with NBCU constructing a lookalike model using a combination of the businesses’ first-party data for the primary time. The test saw a double-digit improvement in reach, saved double digits on the price per reach and minimized duplication, with double-digit improvements across top- and middle-funnel norms, especially on Toyota’s chief concern, web conversion.
NBCU today announced that it’s integrating its first-party identity spine with VideoAmp, stepping up a previous partnership to offer top-of-funnel measurement and permit for advertisers to transact around audiences for the primary time. The company can also be expanding its partnership with EDO around mid-funnel engagement metrics and bringing in Kochava for lower-funnel metrics including app installs, in-app purchases, website conversions and more.
Largely absent from the One24 conversation was iSpot.television, which NBCU previously anointed as currency for national ad buys. Lee stated there was a “narrowing” of focus after years spent canvassing and certifying Nielsen alternatives.
“It doesn’t mean that we won’t do business, obviously, with other providers,” Lee said. “But those that you just’ll hear us working with in OPTM really represent our most strategic partners [with whom] we’re going to invest probably the most of our R&D into constructing custom data integrations into this framework. We can’t try this with dozens of providers.”
Stepping up content, commerce opportunities
NBCU has often launched latest tech capabilities around major programming events, and this 12 months’s One24 is not any different. The company’s coverage of the Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games provides a wide-scale opportunity to offer latest abilities for each advertisers and audiences.
For the primary time, promoting throughout the Olympics and Paralympic Games can be available programmatically through a partnership with The Trade Desk that provides a private marketplace with biddable access. The move continues NBCU’s efforts to democratize access to TV advertisers and move beyond upfront commitments with major holding corporations to a similar market of small- and medium-sized businesses served by corporations like Meta and Google.
In the last 12 months, NBCU has increased its variety of advertisers by 40%, largely through expansions of programmatic buying. Along with bringing in latest digital-first and direct-to-consumer advertisers, NBCU is seeing major advertisers adding programmatic elements for various kinds of performance-based campaigns.
The Olympics can even offer audiences latest capabilities on Peacock as NBCU looks to beef up its streaming service before a period of heavy consumer use. Peacock Live Actions allow viewers to design their schedules with “select your individual adventure” type prompts, while Peacock Discovery Multiview is billed as an industry-first, four-view experience that could possibly be clutch throughout the busy Olympics period.
NBCU at the identical time is adding latest ways to engage with consumers who’ve their remotes and mobile devices in hand with latest and expanded shoppable integrations. The company is expanding its AI-powered, Walmart-fulfilled Must ShopTV to six franchises and piloting a partnership with Comcast’s Xfinity X1 that lets consumers shop for the precise items they see in “Top Chef.” During the Olympics, NBCU can even roll out Virtual Concessions, a partnership with a to-be-determined last-mile delivery service that encourages viewers to purchase beverages and snacks upfront of sporting events and TV binges.
Streaming leads the best way
The push to improve Peacock with content and commerce comes as more streaming platforms add ad-supported tiers and other media conglomerates step up their advertising-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) efforts, as competitor Fox has done with Tubi. But as Mark Marshall, NBCU’s chairman for global promoting and partnerships, said on the press briefing, AVOD is just not easy and can’t be a “side hustle.”
“We obsess about promoting and having promoting on the core of Peacock each day,” the manager said. “How can we ensure that it’s a great ad experience for the buyer, because we all know if it’s a great ad experience for the buyer, it’ll be a great ad experience for the marketer as well.”
NBCU’s work in streaming and connected TV follows the continued growth of those channels as a goal of promoting dollars and audience attention. But it also comes as advertisers are grappling with signal loss and the deprecation of third-party cookies. With logged-in, authenticated users and a latest integration with Google and LiveRamp (alongside a previous partnership with Trade Desk around UID 2.0), NBCU’s offerings are an “encapsulation of the facility of TV today,” said Ryan McConville, executive vp for promoting platforms and operations, throughout the press briefing.
“You can get great cultural IP, you may get automation, you need to use data that’s actually future-proofed and never crumbling away just like the cookie, you may do all that in an automatic way for each big and small corporations,” McConville said. “There’s not one other streamer you may point to that provides those combos of things and puts all those pieces together.”
“People consider the open web and cookies for retargeting and performance, [but] when all that goes away, CTV or streaming may emerge as the perfect place to do performance promoting, because it is going to have an identity signal,” the manager continued. “You’ll start to see not only TV be entering the performance space, but really start to lead it.”
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