NBCU Streamlines Cross-Platform Advertising with One Platform Total Audience
Advertisers are looking for solutions that are both clever and effective in the age of cookie deprecation, fragmented media viewing, and an increase in ad-supported streaming options. With the full-scale launch of One Platform Total Audience, NBCUniversal revealed how it is redefining cross-platform, audience-based advertising for the media industry ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It is the most recent iteration of its One Platform offering, reaching audience segments wherever they are with the use of sophisticated technology and sizable data sets. NBCU claims that its AI-powered planning and activation technology represents the most recent advancement in data and evolution, offering brands unduplicated reach via a single media buy across streaming and linear.
Streamlining Cross-platform advertising
The goal of NBCUniversal’s One Platform is to serve as a one-stop store for customized advertising. One Platform Total Audience is a brand-new AI-powered cross-platform media planning and activation tool that was introduced on January 8. The business promotes it as the next development in audience-based, cross-platform advertising. The solution develops a unified media plan for linear and streaming platforms using machine learning and predictive analytics to efficiently reach a brand’s target audience.
Using the company’s recent investments in automation and data, the offering allows marketers to leverage NBCU’s AI-driven planning and activation technology to deliver deduplicated reach through a single buy across linear and streaming. The technology allows for broad and transparent consumer targeting at the program level by leveraging advertisers’ and NBCU’s first-party data sets.

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What does it do?
With marketers in mind, One Platform Total Audience was created to open up new avenues for finding scale, generating incremental reach, and prioritizing brand safety. The technology, in particular, targets a brand’s particular audience segment and increases brand effectiveness by creating a single media plan across linear and streaming that combines machine learning and predictive analytics.
The whole collection of content from NBCUniversal is available on One Platform Total Audience. To more effectively reach the customers that matter most to brands at an unmatched scale and with program-level transparency into delivery, the technology makes use of the company’s extensive first-party data as well as the data sets of advertisers. The main idea behind One Platform Total Audience is to utilize CES as a venue for announcing One Platform updates, such as last year’s breakthroughs in identity and data technologies. Over the years, the company has made large investments in this technology to change the way that deal-making works in the advertising industry. Thanks to technology, marketing strategies can now be more responsive and flexible, allowing them to change with changing consumer preferences.
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New investments in advanced advertising tech
NBCUniversal has made significant investments in cutting-edge advertising technologies. The company claims that with the full-scale launch of One Platform Total Audience in 2024, it is “arriving at the pinnacle of its commitments by bringing together its capabilities across all screens.”
The most recent developments that enable this are:
Fresh automation
One Platform Total Audience will identify an optimal media mix to engage marketers’ specific audience segments by using machine learning to automate budget allocation across linear and streaming media. With One Platform Total Audience, NBCUniversal will also offer programmatic guarantees for media buys, resulting in more automated and turnkey streaming activation. Additionally, the business plans to implement new buy-side automated order and workflow management to simplify transacting with strategic audiences.
Better data interoperability
Advertisers and agencies now have more flexible and effective ways than ever to onboard their data thanks to interoperability integrations throughout the media ecosystem. All of these are designed with privacy as their top priority. With the expansion of NBCUniversal’s streaming portfolio, marketers can now reach their target audiences with greater scale and better match rates.
Leveraging interoperability throughout NBCU’s portfolio, the technology makes use of both advertisers and the company’s first-party data sets to more effectively and transparently reach target consumers. The machine learning feature of the offering optimizes the targeted media mix by automating budget allocation across streaming and linear advertising.
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Widespread advertising industry acceptance
To enhance agency planning systems, NBCU collaborated with its branding and agency partners to develop One Platform Total Audience. The One Platform Total Audience for Q1 2024 is fully booked in all major categories, including tech, automotive, and retail. In response to this widespread industry adoption among agencies and brands, the company announced that in Q2 2024, it will expand to One Platform Total Audience.
In an early One Platform Total Audience test, NBCU observed improved brand reach and efficiency along with a reduction in impression waste. Furthermore, compared to specific age and gender demographics for the same brands, advertisers experienced a 25% higher brand engagement rate. Nearly 60% of NBCUniversal’s advertising clients have made purchases in the last year, so building a system that can accommodate this increasing
Why is it important?
The goal of One Platform is to reconcile traditional advertising methods with consumers’ preferences for viewing content across all screens. As per NBCU, the One Platform technology stack offers marketers the data-driven products, services, and capabilities they require to accomplish their business objectives and enhance the viewer experience. The most recent offering from NBCU represents the industry’s change in attitude toward media.
Here’s what they said
Mark Marshall, chairman, of NBCUniversal Global Advertising & Partnerships said,
From day one, NBCUniversal has evolved its business to connect with consumers where they are, while giving advertisers a seat at the table. 2024 will be a watershed year for change. Seismic shifts in measurement will throw everyone’s media mix models up in the air, presenting a singular opportunity to transact on strategic audiences and measure real KPIs for marketers. With One Platform Total Audience, we are empowering our clients to supercharge their media schedules in a whole new way and maximize the effectiveness of their ad dollars to achieve their business goals.
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