NBCU said Monday it has added inventory from Sky to One Platform, its ad offering where brands can plan, buy, optimize and measure across all of the media company’s linear and digital inventory.
Adding Sky’s inventory extends One Platform’s reach to half a million monthly viewers across 160 countries. Buyers can access Sky’s global IP and international news alongside content from NBCU-Comcast.
The updates come just a few months after NBCU unveiled One Platform at CES 2020, designed to let advertisers buy audiences across all NBCU-owned properties.
NBCU plans audience network and unveils new targeting tools
NBCU will also launch a “premium, cross-publisher” OTT audience network, which will use its unified ad server and partnerships with tech players and industry trade partners, said Krishan Bhatia, EVP of Business Operations and strategy at NBCUniversal.
Bhatia did not elaborate on who is participating in the audience network, but promised it would offer buyers “reach and audience-based targeting … delivered alongside premium content.”
The network also unveiled new audience buying tools in One Platform, including day-part targeting and the ability for marketers to sync their data with NBCU’s to buy audiences at scale.
Buyers can also access more “near-real time data” for optimization across platforms to “align campaigns with rapidly shifting consumption,” Bhatia said. “We’re scaling insight and measurement tools to give more visibility into campaign optimizations as they happen.”
One Platform is also enhancing its programmatic API for linear TV, scaling OTT inventory on FreeWheel and enhancing linear workflows with Mediaocean and Operative.
And on the ad innovation side, One Platform now offers a product sync tool that helps advertisers optimize product placements and integrations against their audiences across NBCU’s entire portfolio.
NBCU is also continuing to lighten its ad load on both linear and in Peacock, the ad-supported streaming service it launched in April. Peacock has five minutes of ads or fewer per hour, the lowest ad load in the industry, claimed Laura Molen, president of ad sales and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
“We’re going to continue to find ways to minimize clutter starting with highest-profile and most impactful programming,” she said. She also added Peacock will not take advertising from competitive streaming services.
NBCU is positioning One Platform against the current backdrop of COVID-19 as a way to stay on top of rapidly shifting consumer behaviors and deal with delays in the upfront negotiation cycle.
“[One Platform] turns consumption challenges into opportunities for marketers,” said Mark Marshall, president of advertising sales and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
