NBC News will continue to roll out vertical, special interest \u201cnear news\u201d advertising opportunities going into 2017, the most recent of which is a technological\/transformational themed effort called Mach for NBC News. \u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve rolled out as part of our quality transformative mission is a vertical strategy,\u201d Alex Duncan, VP of Digital Strategy & Operations, says in an interview with Beet.tv.<\/p>\n

The strategy derives from the knowledge that \u201cMarketers want to be near news content. We pay a lot of attention to that,\u201d says Duncan.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s already in place for NBC New\u2019s TODAY, \u201cwhich is a great TV brand but it\u2019s also a brand that we\u2019ve positioned digitally as a lifestyle brand,\u201d Duncan explains, citing home and health related content as examples within the vertical.<\/p>\n

Most recently, NBCU launched Mach<\/a> from NBC News, whose mission is to chart the future \u201cfrom technology to the scientific breakthroughs changing our lives,\u201d as stated on the Mach beta website. Boeing, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary, had dominant ad positions on the site.<\/p>\n

In February 2017, the company will offer a vertical called Better, \u201cwhich is wellness for the whole you. Not just health but fitness, financial wellness, career wellness,\u201d Duncan<\/a> says.<\/p>\n

Better will be followed by Think, whose content will include \u201cbig ideas, possibly political analysis, think pieces,\u201d according to Duncan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think those are great opportunities for advertisers to play in sort of a near news space,\u201d Duncan says. \u201cWe are providing places where they can advertise against sort of a clear niche in a more welcoming space than sometimes the larger news product can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about video viewing and the user experience, Duncan recalls the origins of NBC New\u2019s early decision to turn off auto-play, the dual reason for which was viewability concerns and understanding that people reading an article might not want a video to be playing as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness goals are important, but ultimately if you\u2019re hurting your user experience you\u2019re handicapping your business goals in the long run,\u201d says Duncan. Advertising, he concedes, sometimes \u201cgets in the way\u201d of a quality experience.<\/p>\n

This interview is part of our series \u201cThe Road to CES,\u201d a lead-up series in advance of CES 2017. The series is presented by FreeWheel<\/a>. Please find more videos from the series here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBC News will continue to roll out vertical, special interest \u201cnear news\u201d advertising opportunities going into 2017, the most recent of which is a technological\/transformational themed effort called Mach for NBC News. \u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve rolled out as part of our quality transformative mission is a vertical strategy,\u201d Alex Duncan, VP of Digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[6006],"tags":[3554,5395,6031,6032,6033,6034],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}