While video content fragmentation is great for viewers, it can be “a little overwhelming” for advertisers. One of the ways that NBCUniversal hopes to make it easier—on a global scale—is its new AdSmart offering with Sky, which was recently acquired by NBCU parent Comcast.
“One of the newer and exciting announcements for us is Sky with AdSmart,” says Mike Reidy, SVP, Digital Ad Sales, NBCUniversal. Sky being this amazing international leader but also in the OTT space as well.”
In this Beet.TV interview at the recent MediaMath All Fronts event in Manhattan, Reidy also talks about the migration of video viewing to big screens and evangelizing the opportunities of connected-TV and programmatic advertising transactions.
“I think it’s interesting because when digital video viewership first began, it was seen as taking viewers from the big screen to the small screen” amid concerns like viewability of content and ads. “But now with the advent of connected TV, OTT you’re seeing those viewers migrate back to the big TV screen,” Reidy says.
It’s one thing to have “the largest canvas for a brand to communicate via sight, sound and motion” and another to have advanced TV sitting on a digital platform. “So that lends itself to all the capabilities of dynamic ad serving, new interactive ad units as well as data.”
Last month, Comcast united NBCU’s Audience Studio targeting solutions with Sky’s addressable advertising tools. Operating under the AdSmart name, it’s designed to enable global brands to reach customers in international markets and measure results across NBCU and Sky’s TV portfolio, as Broadcasting & Cable reports.
Asked about AdSmart’s plans for the United States, Reidy says, “That’s what we’re working through right now, identifying what are the strong points from each of us respectively. But ideally, the long term is that if we have a client that’s looking at things from a global landscape through a global lens, we now have this incredible domestic and international reach to have a much more strategic conversation with them.”
As for working with DSP’s, Reidy says NBCU is “really excited about what MediaMath is doing. They’re leaning really heavily into the connected TV space and this programmatic landscape. We look at them as people we can partner with, collaborate with, to evangelize what the capabilities are here.”
This video was recorded at the MediaMath Connect All Fronts industry conference in Manhattan. The series is sponsored by MediaMath. For more videos please visit this page.
