During its investor day, NBC Universal unveiled ad plans for its Peacock streaming service, along with the first batch of sponsors: State Farm, Target, Unilever, Eli Lilly and Apartments.com.
The platform will debut on April 15 to Comcast subscribers, and will be free to consumers. Later, it will roll out nationally in the United States on July 15. The company said it will bring in "hundreds of millions of dollars" in initial advertising and expects to reach between 30 million and 35 million active accounts by 2024.
Peacock will have five minutes or less of commercial time per hour. For comparison, Hulu has said it runs about half the ad load of traditional TV, which would be somewhere between seven and eight minutes of commercials per hour. There will also be frequency caps in place so people will not see the same ad more than once every half hour.
Peacock will incorporate several ad models that NBC has been testing over the past few years, including ShoppableTV, which allows viewers to buy items directly from shows they are watching; and prime pods, or 60-second ad breaks.
Another model will be pause ads, which deliver a brand message when a viewer takes a break from viewing. That is because during a pause there’s also the opportunity to deliver contextually relevant content that relates to what the viewer is watching, with an option to take an action, like receiving a coupon to their phone. Furthermore, there will also be binge ads, where viewers who watch three episodes of a show in a row will receive an ad-free episode from a sponsor.
Peacock will also feature engagement ads that are interactive, personalized experiences, like trivia questions or product galleries; trending ads that run alongside the day’s most topical content; and exclusive sponsorships of shows that will include just one ad in an episode.
Peacock’s editorial team will curate a collection of titles based on moods, genres, events and other themes so that brands can air contextually relevant messaging. Comcast’s Xfinity voice technology will be integrated into Peacock, which will allow audiences to use their voice to interact with a brand, following on-screen prompts to speak into their remote to receive an exclusive offer.
"We're offering brands a much-deserved seat at the table, next to our engineers, creators, and executives, and launching a council that will be tasked with not only improving the viewer experience on Peacock, but setting the standard for the streaming landscape as a whole," said Laura Molen, President of Advertising Sales and Partnerships at NBCU, in a statement.
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