• BusinessWeek.com, Friday, November 17, 2006 10:45 AM

NBC Universal's new digital czar, Beth Comstock, and her staff are approaching key advertisers with a new proposition: Let the company's digital studios create some of the ads.

While NBC executives chafe at the characterization that it will demolish long-standing notions of what separates media companies from ad agencies, the idea has corporate backing. "The next natural place to use the talents of the studio is with marketers and advertisers," says George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal's chief digital officer.

As Comstock conceded at a recent international TV conference, everyone must get used to the idea that the media marketplace will be full of contradictions and tensions. One big tension is that a direct relationship between networks and marketers could threaten ad agencies' middleman role. NBC's marketing efforts will primarily be "adjuncts" to existing campaigns. Still, notes one insider, in a world of product placement and digital short films built around products, it all becomes similar. That's what Comstock has realized.

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