SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico\u2014So-called direct-to-consumer brands have disrupted many product and service categories, from creation to distribution. But when they need more scale they\u2019re turning to television, a trend that prompted NBCUniversal to partner with the agency Giant Spoon.<\/p>\n
Last month, the two companies launched Direct to Scale, whose core offerings are media strategy and making premium video advertising on linear TV and digital media more accessible to direct-to-consumer businesses, as Campaign reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the Giant Spoon partnership \u201cwe are focused mainly on direct-to-consumer brands that they represent, but not only that, the opportunity is really for us to expand our roster of advertisers beyond the current more traditional legacy advertisers,\u201d says Brian Norris, SVP, Audience Sales, NBCUniversal.<\/p>\n In this interview at last month’s\u00a0Beet Retreat 2018<\/a>, Norris talks about transitioning from traditional media currencies and embracing more outcomes-focused metrics. He explains how NBCU\u2019s in-house Future of Advertising Group is focused on \u201cchanging how we interact with marketers in terms of making sure that ultimately, we\u2019re providing the most ROI for them long term sustainable growth.\u201d<\/p>\n That process starts with providing the best content for consumers that, in turn, produces better results and better environments. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at currencies that measure impact and outcomes as opposed to traditional currencies, which ultimately we\u2019re not able tie business results to traditional measurement currencies,\u201d Norris says.<\/p>\n Having started in TV at Lifetime Television in 2003 before moving on to Viacom and then DISH Media Sales and Sling TV, Norris<\/a> has a broad perspective of marketers\u2019 evolving expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cI suspect that many advertisers will have different KPI\u2019s and it\u2019s upon us to be as nimble as possible to be able to achieve those results for them.\u201d<\/p>\n