NBCUniversal strikes Olympics deal with TikTok allowing brands to test new ad formats on the platform

NBCUniversal struck a deal with TikTok for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing next month that will give advertisers the ability to pilot a new, creative ad experience on the social platform. The media behemoth chose TikTok as its Olympics partner following a request for proposals that it put out to social media companies late last year. The deal comes as NBCUniversal, which has retained the rights to air the Olympics in the U.S. since the 1980s, reckons with an increasing number of viewers favoring streaming and digital video versus linear TV as their preferred venue to watch the games. NBCU also faces a Winter Games filled with obstacles, including COVID-19, calls for boycotts of the host nation, and weary advertisers scaling back their once-reliable Olympic presences. “Looking back at insights from the Tokyo 2020 Games, it was fascinating to see how much audience interest there was in perhaps ‘non-traditional’ Olympics content,” said Harish Sarma, TikTok’s global head of content business development, pointing to the popularity of behind-the-scenes videos and the many athletes whose look inside the Olympic Village proved to be a hit with viewers. This time around, NBCU will lean in to TikTok, with plans to produce 30 new TikTok posts a day during the games across the handles it controls, as well as a three-episode livestream show hosted by a yet-to-be-announced TikTok creator. The verified NBC Olympics TikTok page currently boasts 1.5 million followers and nearly 40 million collective “likes” on its videos. “We are collaborating closely to identify which TikTok creator will host the program, and we’re excited for audiences to tune in and see the show,” said Krishan Bhatia, president and chief business officer, advertising and partnerships, NBCU. The agreement will also see NBC’s Olympics advertisers be the first to be offered the chance to pilot new ad experiences on TikTok platform that harness proprietary Olympic content, which will be featured on the app's "For You Page," which is a curated streat based on a TikTok user's specific interests. While NBC declined to name advertisers who have signed on to test the feature, Bhatia said all of the network’s conversations with brands have been “incredibly encouraging,” especially among marketers who are seeking to target “the younger demos of Olympic fans.” The collaboration with TikTok won’t just be a one-off for 2022, either. While in the near-term, the partnership will be tailored to the Beijing Games, NBCUniversal is hoping—and went into the RFP process expecting—that the chosen social media partner would remain during subsequent Olympics such as Paris 2024, Milano Cortina 2026 and beyond. “Partnership. It’s how we can amplify everything we do to transform this industry. Because only partnership companies will be equipped to adapt and innovate quickly, and drive change for the entire ad-supported industry,” Linda Yaccarino, NBCU’s chairman of global advertising and partnerships, wrote in a blog post published at the time of the original RFP announcement in November 2021. That move resulted in submissions from most large platforms, including Snap, Twitter, YouTube and then-newly rebranded Meta, which responded to the NBCU’s request jointly on behalf of Facebook and Instagram. TikTok won't be the only social platform NBCU will work with during the games. It will continue to partner with platforms like Twitter, which it struck an extended deal with last year. That agreement also includes a live show for Twitter and real-time highlights. NBCU's social RFP came on the heels of another callout NBCUniversal issued last summer in its quest for what it’s dubbed “measurement independence.” It received dozens of responses and last week announced that it has finalized a partnership with its first new measurement partner, iSpot.tv, in a deal with Publicis Media that will see the Nielsen rival measure both the upcoming Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LVI. Get the latest Ad Age Super Bowl 2022 news here. The iSpot.tv agreement the first of of many more to come, NBCU confirmed to Ad Age, reiterating that it’s looking to build an interoperable measurement environment of multiple partners rather than altogether replace Nielsen, whose dominance was called into question last year after the company was found to have significantly undercounted ratings.

NBCUniversal strikes Olympics deal with TikTok allowing brands to test new ad formats on the platform

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