NBCUniversal’s self-service programmatic buying offering powered by 4C achieves a few milestones in the linear television world. Among the biggest is that advertisers will be using the same buying console that they already use to target audiences on major social media platforms ripe with video ad inventory.
The deal with 4C “allows us to juxtapose the value of our inventory within the same buying console that they’re buying this other inventory,” says Aaron Radin, NBCU’s SVP of Partnerships & Portfolio Products.
This means that among other things, buyers will be able to decide whether buying a 15- or 30-second ad on the hit show This Is Us “will be a more effective use of a client’s marketing spend than a three-second autoplay video in a news feed,” Radin says in this interview with Beet.TV.
“What’s particularly notable about this relationship is that 4C has been used to buy social media platforms” including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn. And while they are still considered to be social media platforms, nearly half of the advertising transactions that occur on them are for video inventory.
“We saw this as an important place where we could provide the efficiency and targetability that clients have been able to enjoy on those platforms,” Radin says.
Retailer Target is the advertising partner kicking off the self-serve offering, which in the future will expand beyond NBCU’s linear TV inventory to digital as well.
“We’re super lucky to have Target as our launch client for that partnership. I think they’re the perfect client to do so.”
Target is known for its digital targeting prowess and CRM savvy. It’s also been “laser focused on being able to leverage that information against television inventory,” says Radin.
NBCU has created application programming interfaces for its television inventory, a move that Radin describes as “a landmark” in the industry.
“The initial results have been super exciting. We couldn’t be more excited not only that we got it off the ground but about the types of opportunities it opens up to our clients by being able to present our inventory to the market in this way.”
This video is part of a series of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Advanced Advertising conference held during NYC TV Week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by 4C Insights. Please find additional videos on this page.
