Coming off of its best TV Upfront ever, NBCUniversal has seen at least a tripling of its data products. While it\u2019s a testament to the company\u2019s investments in data capabilities and the NBCU Audience Studio, there\u2019s still work to be done to deliver the best possible ad experience to consumers.<\/p>\n

This is the assessment of Denise Colella, NBCU\u2019s Senior Vice President of Advanced Advertising Products & Strategy, who sees over-the-top TV as \u201cone of the most underleveraged opportunities\u201d in the ecosystem today.<\/p>\n

Delivering an enhanced ad experience comes as \u201cwe\u2019re starting to see the lines between linear and digital blurring, because you\u2019re not necessarily watching TV in the same ways that you used to,\u201d Colella<\/a> says in this interview with Beet.TV.<\/p>\n

Between digital capabilities like targeting and optimization, there\u2019s a lot that can be learned \u201clooking in the rear-view mirror about what we\u2019ve done in digital for the past 10 years to make sure we don\u2019t commit the same mistakes,\u201d Colella says.<\/p>\n

Missteps might include viewability, brand safety and the consumer experience. \u201cWe\u2019re able to take all of those learnings from digital, apply the good ones and learn from the bad ones,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While a lack of data about OTT viewing is ultimately \u201cfixable,\u201d the broader issue is linking all data together for the benefit of the viewer. The goal is to make people feel as though \u201cthey\u2019re having one experience with NBCUniversal and not many different experiences through the different platforms that they access our content,\u201d Colella adds.<\/p>\n

While ad loads have been reduced in some instances, there\u2019s still room to grow the ad experience itself so that it becomes an integral part of what consumers enjoy. By way of comparison, Colella says, \u201cMany people buy magazines because they like looking at all the fashion ads. When we can make sure they\u2019re getting advertisements that are relevant to them, it changes the whole dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referencing this year\u2019s Upfront market, Colella cites comments by NBCU CEO Steve Burke that \u201che believes it was our greatest Upfront ever.\u201d As the Los Angeles Times reports<\/a>, NBCUniversal struck deals for the upcoming television season worth nearly $6.5 billion, an increase of 8% over 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we\u2019ve seen in our recent Upfront, our industry partners are really leaning in what we\u2019re doing with our data products and we’ve seen our data products at least triple,\u201d says Colella. \u201cFor us it\u2019s a big testament to the investment that we\u2019ve made in our data and the Audience Studio<\/a> and also it gives us all the confidence in the world to keep developing our road map and our data products moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interview was recorded in Manhattan as part of the Comcast\/FreeWheel 2017 U.S. Client Summit \u201cUnifying the New TV Ecosystem.\u201d This series of videos<\/a><\/a> from the summit is presented by FreeWheel.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming off of its best TV Upfront ever, NBCUniversal has seen at least a tripling of its data products. While it\u2019s a testament to the company\u2019s investments in data capabilities and the NBCU Audience Studio, there\u2019s still work to be done to deliver the best possible ad experience to consumers. This is the assessment of […]<\/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":[6674],"tags":[5395,5916,6350,6677],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131"}],"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=47131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}