Peacock is leaning heavily into the 2024 Paris Olympics as a draw for new subscribers. Counter to the past two Games, which played to record-low audiences, this year’s Olympics broadcasts in some cases are surpassing pre-pandemic ratings. And Peacock is counting on the Olympics’ success to grow its users as the burden of subscriptions weighs increasingly on consumers’ wallets.

Peacock began its marketing as the super-fan destination for Olympics viewers last November, said Shannon Willett, its chief marketing officer.

Rather than positioning the streamer as a substitute for NBC’s linear coverage, Peacock’s marketing has targeted consumers whose viewing behaviors are better suited to its comprehensive coverage and bonus features.

Video spots and out-of-home activations highlight the unique features Peacock offers to Olympics viewers—multi-screen viewing, an AI tool voiced by Al Michaels that recaps each day’s Olympics moments and exclusive shoulder programming such as a talk show from “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper aimed at Gen Zers—positioning Peacock as an alternative viewing experience to NBC instead of a replacement, as streaming is often positioned.

“That’s really how we think about the partnership [with NBCU’s linear marketing teams] and how we think about marketing so that it feels like it’s coming from the same family, but we’re talking to different audiences with messages that are relevant for them based on their individual interests and viewing habits,” said Willett.

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A new spot that began airing over the weekend shows key moments from the Olympics so far, compiling images of breakout athletes, celebrating fans and commentators including Snoop Dogg and Michael Phelps. The spot not only highlights the energy and emotional investment of onlookers that were absent from the past two Olympics due to pandemic restrictions, but points out the updates to Peacock’s user interface since past Games.

For the past Olympics, Peacock “didn’t have the product and content offering that we would have wanted in that moment—we’re in a very different place now,” said Willett, who joined the streamer from Netflix two months after the 2022 Beijing Games. “We had that hill to climb coming in. We wanted to make sure that people knew that we were really focused on making it a great experience and that we needed to drive awareness of the Games on Peacock. People know that the Games are on NBC—they’ve been there for a long time."

These features are also showcased in New York at NBCU’s home base 30 Rock, where passersby can demo the Peacock Olympics experience on an interactive LED cube throughout the Games.

Willett said that key to Peacock’s marketing strategy is staying up to date with social conversation around the Olympics, leveraging FOMO and viral moments as they happen. The streamer has been marketing in audio and paid social channels for mass reach, highlighting recent and upcoming events in its messaging. For example, Willett said prior to the gymnastics events, Peacock’s marketing would highlight when to tune into Peacock to see Simone Biles compete live, messaging that has since changed. 

And OOH marketing has featured up-to-date social posts showing recent victories or viral moments. In partnership with Dive Billboards, real-time commentary from X appears in Peacock ads in New York and Los Angeles.

Keeping marketing fresh “is really the idea because some people like the Olympics broadly and some people are really focused on one particular sport or one particular athlete that they love,” said Willett.

Willett’s team also manages on-platform marketing and manually curates what events, highlights and programming to showcase daily on Peacock, another element that might be different by user. Willett said Peacock’s benefit as a direct-to-consumer platform is being able to hyper-target each user rather than curate by mass appeal.

Peacock launched widely in July 2020, and anticipated using the Tokyo Summer Olympics as a launchpad—a plan that was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 and the Beijing Winter Olympics in early 2022 each pulled record-low ratings. 

Last Thursday’s Olympics coverage on Peacock surpassed the combined streaming viewership of the Tokyo, Rio (2016), London (2012) and Beijing Games combined (10 billion minutes) with over a week of programming to go, according to NBCU. From July 26’s opening ceremony through Saturday, Aug. 3, the Olympics have averaged 32.6 million viewers across platforms, with Peacock regularly pulling between 4 million and 6 million viewers.

Live events like the Olympics have become a central aspect of Peacock’s strategy for attracting new subscribers, a plan that has become more effective over time as the streamer has acquired exclusive sports broadcasts and marketed itself as a must-have service for fans.

The subscriber game

New subscriptions to Peacock increased 3.6 times in the three days before the Tokyo Games and climbed 2.2 times in the three days before the Beijing Games versus the eight weeks prior to each event, according to streaming data firm Antenna. Only 56% and 59% of those new subscribers remained two months after the Olympics concluded in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

However, in January, Peacock hosted the first exclusively streamed NFL playoff game, a Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs that drew an average audience of 23 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Antenna reported that Peacock saw 3 million subscribers join in the three days before the game, and retained 71% of subscribers after a nearly two-month period.

To be sure, parent company Comcast reported Peacock’s subscribers declined by 500,000 to 33 million in the second quarter. The decline may be due, in part, to a $2 pricing increase that was announced during the quarter and went into effect on July 18. Data for signups in the days leading up to the Paris Olympics was unavailable at the time of publication, and Willett declined to comment on numbers. 

Peacock will stream its next exclusive NFL game on Sept. 6, a matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles during the first week of the league’s regular season. That game will join games airing on  NBC on Sept. 5, 7 and 8 that will be simulcast on Peacock.

Sticking subs

Maintaining Peacock’s Olympics subscribers will be Willett’s next hill to climb. 

After Peacock’s exclusive Wild Card game, Willett said 90% of viewers who subscribed for the game watched non-sports content afterwards, which Peacock accommodated by releasing its original series “Ted” and season two of “The Traitors.” As such, making the variety of content Peacock hosts has become key.

This time, Peacock is promoting its September NFL schedule as well as new releases including the mockumentary “Mr. Throwback,” featuring NBA star Steph Curry, on Aug. 8 during the Olympics basketball semifinal and season three of “Bel-Air” on Aug. 15.

Willett said marketing new shows to streaming audiences “is not the same as finishing a single game and being pushed into something” as a network might place a top show immediately following the Super Bowl. Instead, Peacock is serving promotions for its content to subscribers through its app interface, commercial breaks in Olympics coverage and email blasts. 

“We’re really thinking about how to showcase the breadth of content on the platform while people are there watching the Games, and we are definitely seeing people move from Olympic content into other content throughout the Games,” said Willett.