Snapchat’s joint venture with NBCUniversal on a new digital content studio is a sign that the media giant is “digging in deeper” with the popular imaging messaging application. “The joint venture is really sort of the next step in the evolution of the relationship with them,” says Aaron Radin, NBCU’s SVP of Partnerships & Portfolio Products.
The relationship, which lets NBCU reach new audiences and create the right types of content that best resonates with them, began about a year and a half ago. For last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio, “We both created original content and also had coverage of a lot of different live events through their Our Stories product,” Radin says in this interview with Beet.TV.
NBCU is renewing those efforts for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February 2018.
Some of the content NBCU has created for Snapchat derives from its shows, for example The Voice, along with new brands like The Rundown, “the most popular show created on Snapchat.”
Based in Santa Monica, CA, the new digital content studio will be led by Lauren Anderson, an NBC Entertainment executive who joins as Chief Content Officer, as TechCrunch reports. The venture will be shared equally in terms of equity between Snap and NBCU.
Combining NBCU’s expertise in content creation and Snapchat’s intimate knowledge of its users represents a “great opportunity to create more successes, not only for our programming and audiences but of course for our clients as well,” Radin says.
This video is part of a series of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Advanced Advertising conference held during NYC TV Week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by 4C Insights. Please find additional videos on this page.
