MIAMI – The Summer Olympics in Paris will be another sign that the world has moved past the isolation of the pandemic as millions of people travel to France to see the global sporting event. Millions more will watch the games on television as NBC Universal expands coverage among a wide variety of sports on its Peacock streaming service, giving sponsors a large-scale audience.
“Peacock will have the most amount of Olympic hours ever,” Peter Blacker, executive vice president of streaming and data products at Comcast’s NBCUniversal, said in this interview with Beet.TV’s Andy Plesser at the Possible event. “What we’ve done to make it easy for consumers and advertisers alike is create very elegant systems to present the content so that you can curate your own experience.”
Olympics coverage is a key part of NBCUniversal’s strategy to help marketers reach mass audiences in a television landscape that has grown more fragmented as households choose from an ever-growing number of connected-television apps.
“We at NBCUniversal invest $26 billion in content. Live is a critical part of that because it allows the chance to scale large amounts of audiences in one moment,” Blacker said. “It’s something that the audience has really loved because it creates a sense of community.”
Introducing Virtual Concessions
Streaming connectivity also offers a way for brands to interact directly with consumers through shoppable moments. NBC Universal last month introduced a product called Virtual Concessions that will give viewers a way to purchase food, beverages and other items for delivery.
“We’re really looking at the live experience as something that’s much more interactive in a streaming environment and allows advertisers to also understand how to connect and create bespoke experiences for their consumers,” Blacker said.
Programmatic Partnership
NBCUniversal’s presentation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the first time will be available to advertisers through automated platforms. Through a partnership with ad-tech company The Trade Desk, media buyers will have biddable access to audiences programmatically.
“There’s no bigger thing happening in advertising than the growth and advancement of programmatic,” Blacker said. “We’ve often used the Olympics in the past as a testing ground for us with new technologies and launching new things, and so this made perfect sense.”
You’re watching “Anything Is Possible: The Rising Tide of Programmatic Streaming,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series at POSSIBLE 2024, presented by Index Exchange. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
