NBCU Offers 'Guarantees' Based On First-Party, Other Data For Marketers

by Wayne Friedman , April 14, 2016

NBCUniversal now joins other networks in offering “guarantees” that are not based on traditional Nielsen ratings, calling it a “new currency.”

NBC says it will guarantee “the targeted delivery of optimized investments as the exclusive currency” with “select” marketers for the 2016-2017 upfront market.

Under its Audience Targeting Platform product, NBC says it will match each advertiser’s unique first-party data with data from other sources -- including NBCUniversal viewership data from Comcast set-top-boxes and other third-party research.

Mike Rosen, EVP of advertising sales, news and Hispanic groups, NBCUniversal, stated: “The driving force behind all of our data-driven innovations is NBCUniversal’s ability to identify and aggregate distinct audiences at scale.”

Responding to NBCU's announcement, Kelly Abcarian, senior vp of product leadership for Nielsen in an email to MDN said: "While secondary guarantees might be made on an ROI metric versus a reach metric, Nielsen audience and buyer data is often used as a key ingredient in these systems, acting as a foundational element that underpins everything... The industry still needs age and gender based measurement for large scale ad campaigns."

In addition, NBCUniversal says it will incorporate its own first-party information, including data from Fandango and GolfNow, as well as first- and third-party consumer data. All of those sources will combine to identify client-specific inventory across NBCUniversal’s national broadcast and cable networks at the program level.

Fox Networks Group said recently that it will offer guarantees for advertisers using first-party marketers' research and other sources.

NBCU’s ATP system was launched in January 2015.

Its products -- which include NBCUx and NBCUx for linear TV, programmatic offerings across digital video, mobile and display platforms and linear television; NBCU+ Powered by Comcast, addressable capabilities offered with Comcast; and Social Synch -- extend advertisers’ and NBCUniversal’s social-media content campaigns across social platforms.

advertising, audience targeting, ratings, tv, upfront

8 comments about "NBCU Offers 'Guarantees' Based On First-Party, Other Data For Marketers".

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Henry Blaufox from Dragon360, April 14, 2016 at 10:52 a.m.
Who is doing the heavy lift application programming, data loads, matching and reporting (output), report design and delivery - the myriad details that go into systems development and implementation? What are the agreed upon rules to define and measure successful implementation? What will be the involvement and responsibilities of NBCU and the buy side participants? Is there third party involvement to develop the system and run it? In order for any such poroject to be worthwhile for all participants, this must be determined and agreed to by all parties involved in advance. No guesswork, no assumptions about what constitutes success metrics and deliverables.
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Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, April 14, 2016 at 10:59 a.m.

The great thing about this offering is that it will allow advertisers to spot the stupider agencies.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 14, 2016 at 11:49 a.m.

Sounds like this applies mostly to digital ad sales and I suspect that there is no unified system but that the buyer and seller agree on some outside source and metric on a case by case basis, more or less in ad hoc fashion. It may even involve the advertiser's own sources or other indicators, such as click throughs, or combinations of metrics. Just guessing, of course.

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dorothy higgins from Mediabrands WW, April 14, 2016 at 3:49 p.m.

What is proof of performance? What is the guarantee delivery currency?

Nicholas Schiavone from Nicholas P. Schiavone, LLC, April 16, 2016 at 8:50 p.m.

This would be hysterical if it did not seem an absurdly bad business proposition. I do not carry a brief for Nielsen, but guarantees based on first-party data (v. syndicated, third-party data) are not guarantees at all. Rather it appears to be the marriage of wishful thinking and self-fulfilling prophecy. If NBC, other networks and the advertising community had spent more time working with Nielsen to get TV measurement right, then they would not be spending outrageous amounts of time and money inventing workarounds to get around their apparently dysfunctional ignorance. Who's kidding whom? Perhaps UPFRONT is not the right name for the process. New currency or new insanity? Caveat Emptor!

Henry Blaufox from Dragon360 replied, April 17, 2016 at 9:36 a.m.

Add your questions to a list that NBCU can perhaps address in a public forum, along with mine about development and deployment, also Ed Papazian's on data sources. Any takers at NBCU? Consider this an opportunity.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 17, 2016 at 4:44 p.m.

Just to note for about 6-7 years the TV networks and other national TV sellers have been using mutually agreed upon ( with the buyers ) third party sources---such as commercial recall studies, data about viewer attentiveness, etc. in conjunction with Nielsen ratings in most of their upfront and many scatter sales. I suspect that the same thing is the case with sources like Rentrak's set usage studies, which can be sliced and diced evry finely on a geographic basis and correlated with sales information as a further targeting tool---over and above Nielsen. The danger in this lies in the fact that set usage studies usually show an upscale slant to the "audience"----which would suit any seller just fine---but viewer data often contradicts such findings. In short---"buyer beware".