NBCU, Comcast Unveil Targeted Ad System

NBCUniversal and Comcast today announced a partnership to launch “NBCU+ Powered by Comcast,” a suite of new advertising products designed to increase the effectiveness of media buys through consumer segmentation, advanced analytics and targeting.

The new products offer advertisers a two-part advantage, the company said. First, the ability of advertiser to match their own consumer data — and third-party consumer data — with anonymized Comcast subscriber set-top-box data should enable a better buy across linear television. Then, they will be able to target spots at the household level to video-on-demand (VOD) users.

“As our advertising partners are being challenged to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns, our ability to optimize and target our media beyond traditional demographics with scale is a unique offering that NBCUniversal can now provide thanks to our cutting-edge partnership with Comcast Spotlight,” said Linda Yaccarino, president, advertising sales, NBCUniversal. 

“NBCU+ Powered by Comcast takes the collaboration between Comcast Media 360 and NBCUniversal to another level by jointly delivering measurement and targeting solutions for high-value consumer segments across multiple marketing categories,” said Charlie Thurston, president, Comcast Spotlight.

Yaccarino said: “This is our company’s first advertising product that comes out of the unique marriage of Comcast and NBCUniversal. It is designed to answer what the advertisers have been asking for quite some time.

“NBCU+ Powered by Comcast,” she continued, “gives the advertisers the unique ability to increase the effectiveness of their media buys through sophisticated consumer segmentation with advanced analytics and specialized targeting. So it’s targeting at scale.”

The product, Yaccarino added, “will help advertisers optimize their national campaigns on linear television [the NBC network, for example] and target them and target them at the household level for their video-on-demand inventory.”

Yaccarino offered an example: NBCU+ Powered by Comcast could help a luxury carmaker target national audiences across NBCUniversal’s networks in geographic zones with a high percentage of previous luxury vehicle owners.

And, she said, “we’re also able to take it one step further across our VOD inventory within the Comcast footprint as well. That is over 20 million homes. We’ll be able to deliver enhanced ROI measurements … against that luxury car segment and get an advertiser a true picture of their campaign’s reach,” allowing advertisers to execute campaigns that are more relevant based on an advertiser’s specific criteria.

“If I’m an advertiser, my national ad in The Blacklist is going to be more sophisticated,” Yaccarino said. “You’ve got a more optimized buy on the national side and then you’re threading a much smaller needle on the VOD side.”

“The amount of inventory available for this product will be determined by advertiser interest and demand,” Yaccarino said. “Our goal is to keep on sophisticating the product.”