NBCUniversal Partners With Anzu On In-Game Advertising

NBCUniversal today unveiled a new partnership with Anzu.io, an advanced in-game advertising platform. In addition, NBCUniversal announced it has made a small investment in the adtech startup that, alongside its partnership with Anzu, “will unlock an array of new opportunities for its clients and partners around the world,” it said.

The strategic partnership enlists NBCUniversal as Anzu’s global sales partner and the exclusive third-party seller in the U.S. and U.K. Now, NBCUniversal’s clients will be able to run non-intrusive, in-game ads across Anzu’s cross-platform gaming inventory — which spans mobile, PC and consoles — and use interactive, data driven, contextual, and programmatic in-game advertising solutions.

Partners will also have access to Anzu’s full suite of adtech integrations as well as its measurement — including ad viewability, brand lift measurement, audience verification, data enrichment, and fraud detection — powered by Anzu’s partnerships with organizations including Moat, Comscore, Human, Lumen and Kochava.

“NBCUniversal continues to reach consumers at scale on any platform and on every screen. In addition to streaming, gaming is one of the fastest growing ways to reach young audiences,” said Krishan Bhatia, president and chief business officer at NBCUniversal, “This partnership with Anzu will allow our marketers to engage with an audience of over three billion gamers worldwide, and we’re only getting started.”

As part of the deal, Anzu will be able to access the power of NBCUniversal’s One Platform, including its client and agency relationships, and marketing teams. Meanwhile, NBCU said, “Anzu’s cross-platform ad monetization solution will help game developers generate significant revenue while respecting their players and adding to the overall gaming experience.”

Itamar Benedy, Anzu co-founder and CEO, said: “We’re excited to bring our best-in-class tech and exclusive inventory to one of the world’s leading ad sales teams. This new partnership means more brands and agencies will be able to take advantage of our solution to reach an engaged and untapped audience within the world’s most popular titles while preserving the gamer experience. We also believe, over the next few years, most Fortune 500 brands will incorporate gaming into their ad strategies and the partnership with NBCUniversal brings us a step closer to this becoming a reality.”

This latest partnership announcement comes in the run up to NBCUniversal’s tech developer conference, ONE22, taking place on March 22, where the company is expected to announce its latest capabilities and partnerships in the data, technology and measurement space.