Leading a Content Consumption Transformation
April 22, 2020
This article is largely an abstract from a story that originally appeared in It Is Innovation (i3) magazine, published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®.
At CES® 2020, Yaccarino took to the keynote stage alongside a star-studded panel including Today’s Natalie Morales, Mandy Moore of This Is Us and Terry Crews of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to dive into what’s to come for the entertainment market and what that means for customized advertising.
“We’re really excited about 2020 and beyond and the availability of choice via technology,” she said. “It makes this quite a playground for all of us here at NBCU.”
Yaccarino shared in It Is Innovation (i3) magazine how media and entertainment are being transformed as new viewing options come to life, presenting marketers with new opportunities.
Can you talk about how streaming is changing the industry and the launch of Peacock?
Here’s the thing: it’s not streaming that’s changing the industry. It’s people. What audiences do determines and shapes the market. We know audiences are watching all kinds of content, and streaming gives them more choices, so they’re taking advantage of that freedom. Before we know it, consumers are going to start making the hard choices about how many services are really in their budget, or worth their time.
That’s why we built Peacock to serve people first and give them the best experience anywhere in the market. We’ve created a streaming service with timely content, like news and sports and late night, that’s a part of people’s lives and not available anywhere else on streaming. We also pulled together a timeless library of everyone’s favorite movies and shows.
Now we also know many of the subscription streaming services are closed off to marketers. And because there aren’t really ad-supported streaming services, Peacock gives us the chance to redefine what advertising looks like. It’s an amazing opportunity, because when we get it right, we get to write a whole new playbook for ad-supported video and set the standard for streaming as a whole.
NBCUniversal Checkout: Helping Retailers Reach Their Audiences
Retailers of every size are looking for creative solutions to stay connected with their audiences during the global coronavirus outbreak.
NBCUniversal’s newly announced NBCUniversal Checkout is helping retailers create, build and distribute marketing assets through a single commerce engine. It transforms any piece of content on the NBCUniversal platform into an interactive shoppable experience, offering a quick digital-only solution for advertisers.
How has technology disrupted the media and entertainment landscape?
People use to talk about disruption like it was a wave that would pass. But disruption is a constant, and that’s true in every industry.
In media specifically, the effects of disruption are pretty obvious. Today, people watch more video across more screens than at any other time in history. And we’re working to meet that insatiable demand.
Across Comcast NBCUniversal and Sky, we’ve invested more than $24 billion in content. And next year, NBCUniversal alone will offer more than 110,000 hours of new, original, premium content. That means if a single person watched nonstop, it would take them 12 years to enjoy everything we’re offering in 2020 alone.
Advertising has to respond to that reality. Comcast NBCUniversal has invested billions in technology to reflect this future that consumers have already built. Now, we’re collaborating across the industry to deliver the best experience for viewers and stronger results for marketers. Instead of pushing back against the changes, the teams at NBCUniversal are harnessing the changes to push the entire industry forward.
What is personalization and how does it work?
Good personalization puts people first. It means that you, the viewer, see the right ad at the right time. For the longest time, the folks without ads have argued that consumers don’t like ads. But that’s not true. If we’re thinking about buying a new car, we want to learn about the latest models. If we’re thinking about going to see a movie, we want to know what’s in theaters. So relevant advertising adds value to the viewing experience.
Now the question becomes, how do you make ads relevant? CMOs know it’s about merging the art and the science, great storytelling with great data. Because when you have great data, you can make sure that consumers only see ads that mean something to them, in a context that’s actually meaningful.
But personalization is so much more than ads. It’s about building relationships with our consumers. In this way, personalization — and a customer-first mindset — should influence everything we do: from operational and product infrastructure, R&D, to culture.
In other words, personalization, and the marketers who prioritize it, can set the tone for how an entire company operates.
