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The upfronts week presentations have ended, and now it’s time for the real work: the negotiations. Adweek is sitting down with each of the ad sales chiefs who presented this week to talk about their respective events and their strategies for navigating this year’s marketplace.
First up is Mark Marshall, president, advertising and client partnerships, NBCUniversal. While his boss Linda Yaccarino took center stage during NBCU’s upfront presentation on Monday, Marshall and his president counterpart Laura Molen are the ones actually overseeing negotiations. In their third year at the helm, they are joined by newly promoted Krishan Bhatia (now president and chief business officer, global advertising and partnerships); the trio will jointly conduct NBCUniversal’s upfront talks.
Marshall talked with Adweek about aggressively pricing the company’s streamer, Peacock, as well as his top upfront priorities; selling both the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl 56 in this upfront; and why only focusing on linear ratings is like “trying to judge total retail sales by only counting brick-and-mortar.”
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Adweek: Why did you structure the presentation the way you did this year?
Marshall: The structure reflected the way we’re selling and the way we’re programming. It wasn’t set up by network; you saw us start to get away from that over the past couple years. It is how we go to marketers and how we bring together One Platform. We’re not walking out to a marketer saying, “Here’s what’s on NBC,” we’re saying, “Here is what we think makes sense for your category.”
What is the biggest way that this year’s upfront will be different than last year’s?
We’re now a year and a half into One Platform. I think people understand what it is, and that you don’t have to decide between digital and linear. The intention is to look at everything holistically. And I think that will be true with not only NBCU, but a lot of the other media companies out there no longer bifurcating linear and digital, but looking holistically to achieve their objective. So I think the negotiations will take on a much more holistic view as opposed to a price-by-price, network-by-network negotiation.
What can you say about how discussions are going so far?
I’m not commenting on exactly what we’re seeing overall, but we went into it assuming this was going to be a strong marketplace. Because when we broke it down, there were five categories that we thought were each going to grow a billion dollars each: QSR, tech, auto, entertainment and pharma. That’s just a billion dollars each in just those five categories. Not to mention, we also know that restaurants and travel and other areas will grow as well. So that’s what we’ll anticipate as we go into it: There’s going to be an abundance of not only new advertisers, but advertisers that are going to come back in much bigger ways than they had last year.
There’s going to be an abundance of not only new advertisers, but advertisers that are going to come back in much bigger ways than they had last year.
Mark Marshall, president, advertising and client partnerships, NBCUniversal
What are your top upfront priorities this year?
Getting marketers to look at the benefits of what One Platform is. You don’t have to decide between linear and digital, you don’t have to decide between content or targeting, you don’t have to decide between engagement or technology. One Platform allows you to holistically move to where the audience is. Probably the greatest manifestation of that is Peacock, and the ability for the broad marketplace to be able to transact against Peacock in that way.
And then, we have a pretty unbelievable run: You go from Tokyo [Olympics] into the Paralympics, into Sunday Night Football, into the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl and then World Cup. So there’s plenty of priorities as we roll into this one.
You’ve sold much of the Tokyo Olympics already, but what opportunities will be available in the upfront for marketers who want to be involved with the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl?
The World Cup also will fall in that, because you’ll have the qualifying [games] that will lead into the World Cup, in November, next year. So we’re looking at it as really an 18-month run that we’ll have, because we will be transacting with some advertisers already who want to talk about the World Cup as part of this upfront as well. We’re talking to marketers right now about people that want to participate in all three of the big events: Olympics, NFL/Super Bowl and World Cup. We’re calling it our Once in a Lifetime packages, which are bringing all of those together for advertisers.
NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said on your last earnings call that you’re getting CPMs for Peacock that are equal or to above NBC prime. What was the thinking behind being that aggressive in your Peacock pricing, not only in scatter but in this upfront?
We are looking at Peacock as really our third broadcast network. You have NBC, you have Telemundo and you have Peacock, because Peacock, by fourth quarter of this year, will [have] the same reach as a broadcast network in primetime. It’s delivering that mass scale, but it’s also delivering a unique audience and a great ad environment. So it’s like being able to go back and buy NBC in the 1930s when it was starting. And that’s how we’re looking at Peacock: We do believe that this is a big part of the future of our company. And advertisers have a lot of demand against that so far.
You announced several new ad formats ahead of your presentation. Which ones do you feel may have the most momentum in upfront talks?
Anything having to do with contextual. We’re having more and more success, linking brands tied directly to the content that’s running, as well as the IP of that show. Last year, we had a partnership with Microsoft and Chris Collinsworth that ran in Sunday Night Football. The results of that were outstanding.
But the thing that is really amazing in these contextual deals is [that] it actually makes not only that branded spot that we’re doing perform well, it actually makes their other brand spots work that much harder. So it’s this halo effect that’s come with this contextual advertising that we’re seeing right now, that we absolutely believe strongly in. And so you’ll see it in a lot of the different ad formats as we go through that.
What opportunities will be available for marketers who want to be involved in This Is Us’ final season?
We absolutely will have specific plans around that. And we’re talking to different advertisers that have partnered with the show previously. It is a little bit like losing a family member, but we have an immense amount of interest in advertisers being in this last sixth season that we’re gonna have on that side of it. While we don’t sell specific shows, there are sponsorships that are tied in that side.
In addition to This Is Us, the big sponsorship show that we’ll have will be American Song Contest on NBC. That is based on Eurovision, where every country competes … almost like March Madness, where it comes to a winning country and a winning song. We’re going to do it here in the States, so all 50 states will have a singer-songwriter competition, all the way down to eight continual weeks of live shows to crown a champion and champion state. That will premiere coming out of the Winter Olympics, and there will be some natural sponsorships that will go with that.
You and Laura have jointly overseen the last two upfronts. Now Krishan has also been added to the mix. How are you three divvying the upfront duties?
We are all in lockstep on every deal. So we’re not really dividing and conquering; each one of us is partnering on the overall partnerships of it. But obviously we have our specialties within there, that all come into play. Mine on broadcast and sports, Krishan on digital, and Laura on [Peacock and more]. So we all bring that expertise and knowledge of our individual verticals into those discussions.
I think the idea of looking and comparing past linear ratings to today is a fool’s errand.
Marshall on the relevancy of linear ratings
NBCUniversal presented at the NewFronts, alongside many digital publishers who told marketers to move their budgets away from big media companies like yours this year. What’s your response to that aggressive push this year from connected TV platforms and others to grab portions of ad budgets that would normally go to your company?
I think when people look at just linear ratings, it’s not a relevant number. It’s like trying to judge total retail sales by only counting brick and mortar and not including online retail at the same time. It’s just part of the story, where we’re at today. And a great element that we offer is the idea around One Platform is you get the immediate reach of linear television that cannot be replicated in digital. You get the targeting and fluidity of digital, all in one. And that’s the secret sauce: you actually get both. You don’t have to, as a marketer, choose one or the other. So I think the idea of looking and comparing past linear ratings to today is a fool’s errand.
What else is top of mind for you going into these upfronts?
World War II was the last time we paused our economy for a period of time, and then you saw the boom that came after that. I think the macro economic factors of GDP growth, low unemployment and low interest rates, is going to cause this great momentum that’s going to happen in the economy. And I think marketers are trying to be there in front of the right eyeballs, as the economy opens back up over this next 18 months. So I think it’s going to be a great partnership of advertising and marketers to tell the story to the right people at the right time.
