NEW YORK – NBCUniversal has more than doubled the audience for its Peacock streaming service to 60 million monthly active users since last year. The media company today is touting its streaming growth in an upfront sales presentation that covers its content, technology and partnerships.
“We are so thrilled that in less than two years of its launch date, Peacock is thriving, and it’s not the same Peacock that it was when we came to the marketplace last year,” Laura Molen, president of NBCUniversal advertising sales and partnerships, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “Really putting advertisers at the center and thinking about how will consumers engage with these advertisers was so important to us and it’s really working.”
Peacock in September will become the exclusive streaming home of Bravo, the network whose hit shows include “The Real Housewives” franchise, “Top Chef,” “Below Deck” and “What What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.” Peacock this month began next-day streaming for new episodes of several Bravo shows such as “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and “Summer House.” Peacock added 4 million paid subscribers to end the first quarter with 13 million paying customers and 28 million active accounts, according to Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company.
Content, Commerce and Data
As an ad-supported streaming service, Peacock offers marketers greater flexibility with their campaigns than live linear television. Brands can implement frequency caps to ensure their commercials aren’t reaching the same viewers too often. They also can use data clean rooms to help match their customer information with NBCUniversal’s consumer identifier, NBCU ID, for one-to-one targeting.
Peacock this month also announced two new ad formats: the “frame ad” that supports ecommerce and the “in-scene ad” that lets advertisers digitally place their branding in shows. The announcements followed the earlier introduction of its Harmonizer tool to help marketers identify which ad creative to show audiences based on viewer behavior.
“So many of these ad formats have been created with marketers,” Molen said. “We have a Peacock Council which started with our 10 launch partners and was expanded as more partners joined in in a very meaningful way.”
Partnering for Expanded Distribution
Because consumers divide their time among a wider variety of electronic gadgets, NBCUniversal has formed partnerships with other media platforms to distribute its programming. Content-sharing and social media apps such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube are especially popular with younger consumers. Many of them gather online to talk about their favorite shows or to share cultural moments as they’re happening, such as sporting events and awards shows.
“We really believe that we need to put our content wherever the consumer is, because if the consumer comes first, we have to be where they are,” Molen said. “It’s been very powerful for us and powerful for our marketers because it allows them to build reach in a very meaningful way.”
With its upfront presentation, NBCUniversal will showcase its combination of premium content, consumer data and technology to help advertisers achieve their business goals.
“We listened to what they needed and wanted to build their businesses, and we got the investment from Comcast to build our business for the future,” Molen said. We really have, over the last few years, catapulted ahead of the industry in so many areas and are leading in these key areas — and marketers see that that we can make a difference for their business.”
