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Cryptocurrency and sports betting have been two of the hottest emerging advertiser categories over the last several months, but what will come next?
Executives from NBCUniversal and Disney made up a panel at Adweek’s Convergent TV Summit, where they discussed how these two trends are impacting advertising and what’s to come.
The emergence of crypto and sports betting
As TV consumption undergoes a digital revolution, new categories are emerging, with cryptocurrency and sports betting leading the way.
“Those are two huge categories that we’ve seen enormous growth and engagement around,” Danielle Brown, svp of data enablement and category strategy at Disney Advertising Sales, explained. “As it relates to cryptocurrency, we’ve been working with a lot of advertisers in the space. They’re really tapping into us to build brand awareness around their offering because even though it feels like it has proliferated, it’s nascent to many consumers. So, we’re working with many brands across our tentpole events, especially sports.”
According to Brown, as more states legalize sports betting, the space is also seeing explosive growth and interest.
“In 2020, in the last four months, that category spent about $60 million. In the last four months of 2021, they spent $175 million,” she said. “So, it’s almost triple what they spent in 2020, and we’ve done a lot in this space as well. ESPN has a plethora of content to serve this consumer, and 84% of the sports betting audience consumes ESPN on a weekly basis. So, we’re attracting that fan and creating content for that fan specifically.”
Yusuf Chuku, evp of client strategy and insights, advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, said his team is seeing the same trends.
“The last graph I saw showed 500% growth over the next ten years in the sports betting [$10] billion category,” he said. “It’s huge, and I think a lot of the advertisers in that space are looking to build broad brand awareness, which is obviously a challenge for any brand in a nascent category. I think they’re also looking to build trust, and because of that, you’re seeing them lean into platforms like our own that are adjacent to the big sporting events, and next to the news.”
Using storytelling to engage and build trust
Some of the struggles with crypto attempting to go mainstream is the barrier to entry, as people try to understand it. Chuku said it’s important to educate consumers and advertisers to build trust in the new category.
“You can’t predict what will change, but you can predict what’s going to stay the same,” he said. “So the thing we can do today is think about things that probably won’t change and will remain eternal. One of those is storytelling. There’s still a huge need to be entertained and informed. So for us, it’s figuring out how we continue to engage people with that storytelling but do it in an environment that’s safe. I think as we venture into the Web3 future, that responsibility will only increase.”
