• by Wayne Friedman , May 13, 2010

Looking to improve its digital preseason marketing versus a year ago, NBC has struck a wide-ranging deal with Microsoft Advertising, covering almost two dozen large digital platforms for the launch of its fall TV shows.

The campaign will run a day after NBC's upfront presentation on Monday through mid-September, when NBC's new season of fall shows will debut. It will include exposure to around 20 digital Microsoft platforms, including MSN, Xbox and Window Mobile.

NBC says the early fall marketing push is unprecedented. The goal is to engage TV enthusiasts and influencers, so they can sample new shows and pass on buzz to others.

There will be multiple executions on MSN, Wonderwall, an entertainment and celebrity content destination, in partnership with TV producers BermanBraun and Bing, Microsoft's search engine. In-game advertising will run on Xbox Live games.

Robin Domeniconi, vice president of U.S. advertising sales, publishing and marketing for Microsoft, said: "We are able to tailor NBC's content for each property and screen, from MSN to Xbox to Mobile, and flex our targeting muscle to tell a cohesive story of NBC's brand and fall lineup."

Tim Farish, senior vp of brand management and media for NBC, said: "The partnership with MSN marks our largest digital partnership with a single vendor to date. While we will still be advertising our upcoming Fall programs on a number of additional digital properties, we wanted to create a foundation that reached consumers through a wide breadth of digital platforms while also utilizing the entire runway the summer affords us."

He went on to say: "[Media agency] Ignited was instrumental in helping us navigate this partnership and has been our digital media agency of record since January 2009."