Since NBCUniversal’s One Platform was first announced in January, it has continuously evolved through a series of changes to optimize its audience targeting and ad inventory sales.
Now, the media company is taking its offerings one step further, bringing NBC Spot On under the One Platform umbrella and scaling up the OTT and CTV ad service to be offered to local marketers across its full range of premium channels including YouTube, Apple News and its proprietary streaming service Peacock.
"Local advertisers have always seen the value in reaching audiences where they are, and they've told us they want more digital premium video options," says Frank Comerford, NBCU’s chief revenue officer, local advertising and partnerships.
Audience targeting options
As part of the newly announced expansion, NBCU is doubling the amount of digital and streaming inventory offered on its OneApp, which encompasses a range of network brands including Bravo, E!, MSNBC and more. In addition to that increase, local marketers will now have access to NBCU’s full suite of audience targeting options as well as new geo-targeted selling metrics for its inventory, including CTV and OTT, via Spot On.
"Small and medium businesses have long turned to NBCUniversal for their local advertising needs, and the sales team has always delivered premium content alongside geo-targeted audiences,” said Krishan Bhatia, NBCU’s executive VP, business operations and strategy.
That amped-up array of choice for regional advertisers is not insignificant; every month, more than 30 billion minutes of content are watched by roughly 200 million people across all of NBCU’s digital properties, the company says.
The latest announcement comes as NBCU has sought to scale other “in-house innovations” such as AdSmart and CFlight, as well as recent shoppable content developments in the form NBCUniversal Checkout and One Platform Commerce, which is supported by a partnership with PayPal.
Its revamped One Platform offerings will likely come as welcome news for local marketers, whose collective regional advertising revenue is already predicted to steadily rebound in 2021 by as much as 2.5%, according to a forecast published last week by BIA Advisory Services.
