Peacock is trying out two new formats for advertising on its streaming platform, according to Peter Blacker EVP for agency partnerships at NBCUniversal.
Blacker talked up the new commercial innovations during Peacock’s NewFronts presentation Monday, where Comcast’s NBCU highlighted the reach of its large content library.
The two new Peacock formats include Frame Ads and In-Scene ads. Frame ads makes the main video content sightly smaller, with a frame around it that features relevant brands. It features geotargeting, so that the frame shows advertising with brands that are relevant based on viewers location.
“That means that the company can make sure fans in New York see their favorite brand,” Blacker said, showcasing an example of a gelato brand Talenti. Meanwhile, viewers across the country in Seattle might see the same frame ad format, but it would feature a popular brand in that region, such as Breyers ice cream, for example.
“Not only can we enhance relevance by region, but like all our innovations we can also add commerce,” Blacker added. That involves inserting elements like a QR code on the Frame Ad, where viewers can connect to partners such as GoPuff to actually deliver the products to the person’s door, providing closed loop attribution for brands.
The second new format, In-Scene Ads, is currently being tested. In this case, brands could be displayed in the background of programs, say on a billboard – and would change depending on when consumers watch and what their interests are, Blacker noted.
“We’ll use technology to seamlessly integrate brands during postproduction…and put them in the scene,” he continued. The feature will be dynamic, with the ability to customize which brands appear.
“That means when Jurassic World hits the theaters in June, you’ll see that signage in the background [of a TV show]. But if you’re rewatching that same episode a few weeks later, you’ll now see a promotion for Minions the Rise of Gru.”
And NBCU thinks it can scale easily, with a library of unscripted content offering a great opportunity for the formats along with first-party data to make ads personalized and relevant.
“We’ve already built eight ad innovations specific to Peacock, and they’re delivering results, including double-digit increases in brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchase intent for you,” Blacker told advertisers at Monday’s presentation.
The new formats can be tapped through Peacock Premiere, which comes alongside with other ad tools featured during the presentation including Peacock AX and Peacock Ad Manager.
Peacock has been having success with it’s streaming services that has an ad-supported version. In the first quarter Peacock added 4 million paid subscribers. In 2021, digital ad spending was up 49% to $39 billion, according to a new report from IAB. And making a move to ad-supported offers is something streaming rivals like Disney and HBO Max are pursuing, with Netflix finally acknowledging it would consider a lower cost AVOD option as subscriber growth slowed.
Peacock President Kelly Campbell during Monday’s presentation said that in less than two years since launching Peacock, the service is 75% of the way to its 5-year goal for monthly active accounts.
“Nearly one-quarter of the total addressable market in the U.S. is using Peacock every month,” she noted. Peacock has surpassed 28 million monthly accounts, marking more than 60 million monthly active users. This year, customers are on track to stream more than 5 billion hours of content – double that of 2021, according to Campbell.
In terms of beefing up content further, Peacock announced several new original series and movies (both original and same day streaming). Its top original series title to-date is “Bel-Air,” which premiered in February and executives said is Peacock’s fastest growing and most-streamed original, with 8 million accounts watching so far.
Popular reality TV show network Bravo will have next-day episodes available on Peacock starting in the fall, with new episodes of the series “Real Housewives of Atlanta” exclusively on Bravo and streaming next-day on the service starting Monday. Bravo favorites “Below Deck” and “Watch What Happens Live” are also coming to Peacock.