Ahead of CES 2026 in January, NBCUniversal has unveiled a suite of new technology and data products that it says pushes “the boundaries of media innovation – leveraging the company’s longstanding legacy of innovation to lead the industry into its next century”. 

NBCUniversal’s latest product suite – including LIVE Total Impact, Performance Insights Hub, and AI-powered Contextual Targeting in LIVE – seeks to turn scaled engagement into real outcomes, moving audiences from attention to conversation to conversion across every platform.

“Our company was built on innovation, and as we enter into NBC’s 100th year, we are pairing the strength of our storytelling with the power of our technology to enhance the consumer experience and prove real-time impact for brands,” said Mark Marshall, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “Premium video is more valuable to advertisers than ever, and with these new innovations, we are providing solutions clients have been asking for, backed by the power of NBCUniversal’s entire cross-platform ecosystem – setting a new industry standard for success.”

INNOVATING THE FUTURE OF THE AD EXPERIENCE

As NBCUniversal prepares to usher in the 100th anniversary of NBC, the company says it “is revolutionising the ad experience with a suite of new products, cutting edge data capabilities, and continues to democratise access to our most premium content”.

LIVE Total Impact:

• NBCUniversal is introducing LIVE Total Impact, the industry’s first cross-platform tool designed to leverage the real-time viewership of live tentpole moments and extend that engagement across NBCUniversal’s full ecosystem – delivering the right ad, to the right person, at the right time.

• Following a successful beta during Sunday Night Football – where Telecom and Retail brands saw higher brand lift through targeted re-exposure across NBCU platforms – the company will now expand and scale LIVE Total Impact to even more advertisers across Legendary February events such as Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games, NBA All-Star Weekend, and additional live events throughout 2026 such as Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

• Our beta test with a leading Telecom brand delivered exceptional results, demonstrating the full-funnel power of our big events:

  • +10 per cent lift in awareness and memorability compared to control

  • +77 per cent higher search engagement vs competitive streaming benchmarks

  • +1.8x greater website visitation compared to industry benchmarks

  • Retargeted viewers exposed to in-game ads visited the website 6.8x more than those who were not exposed, showing strong lower-funnel impact.

• This launch represents the next step in delivering solutions that combine the cultural power of live events with the precision of advanced technology – helping brands drive measurable business outcomes today, while shaping the future of advertising for tomorrow.

Contextual Targeting in LIVE:

• For the first time, advertisers can target Live programming in real time using NBCUniversal’s Contextual Targeting in LIVE, a breakthrough AI-powered tool that continuously scans live content to ensure an advertiser’s ad or creative automatically aligns with the most relevant moments as they unfold live.

• Initial VoD beta tests showed brands saw significant increases in engagement and favorability, demonstrating how AI can match brand messages to relevant themes and boost audience interaction.

• An early beta with a luxury brand aimed to boost awareness and strengthen the brand’s association with their campaign message.

• The beta campaign drove strong results, specifically:

  • +27 per cent higher enjoyment of the creative vs. baseline

  • +14 per cent agreement that surrounding content enhanced the brand’s message

  • +10 per cent higher Unaided Brand Awareness vs. baseline

  • +38 per cent perception of the luxury brand as environmentally responsible

  • +56 per cent higher search engagement vs. competitive streaming

• By automating brand suitability and real-time context, this capability gives advertisers greater efficiency, agility, and precision, optimising every second of live media investment to reach audiences at the exact right moment of authentic connection.

Performance Insights Hub:

• NBCUniversal is unveiling the Performance Insights Hub (PIH) – a proprietary intelligence platform providing advertisers of all sizes with a unified view of campaign delivery, audience insights, and full-funnel, in-flight performance.

• Built on NBCUniversal’s One Platform Tech Stack, PIH integrates first- and third-party data through standardised schemas and automated workflows with partners including Dynata, EDO, Kochava, LiveRamp, MarketCast and VideoAmp, with upcoming integrations to support turnkey outcomes measurement for foot traffic and purchase data, plus category-specific integrations to power CPG, Pharma and more.

• This new tool moves marketers beyond static post-campaign reporting enabling in-flight reporting and insights that improve performance across awareness, engagement, and conversion metrics.

Arrival Ads:

• NBCUniversal is redefining premium streaming advertising with the launch of Arrival Ads on Peacock – a first-of-its-kind, bold presence on a user’s profile page that allow brands to own the first impression as soon as viewers enter the platform.

• As one of Peacock’s most valuable placements, Arrival Ads create high-impact visibility across nearly all daily active users, surrounding NBCUniversal’s iconic IP and cultural programming at the moments fans show up to most.

• These dynamic experiences mark a step-change in platform innovation, with Peacock being the first streamer to offer this type of ad in a premium AVoD environment – turning the platform’s front door into an interactive brand moment and demonstrating how technology and world-class storytelling can fuel engagement, fandom, and full-funnel performance.

Programmatic Pause Ads

• NBCUniversal is expanding Peacock’s premium Pause Ads into the programmatic marketplace, enabling advertisers to access this high-impact format through Programmatic Guaranteed deals.

• As the first major premium AVoD publisher to offer a full-screen programmatic Pause Ad, NBCUniversal is bringing more scale, flexibility, and automation to a placement that has already proven effective in direct-sold campaigns.

• This new offering allows brands to deliver contextually relevant creative when viewers naturally pause their content.

• Pause Ads have already proven to be a powerful format, driving a +68 per cent lift in Ad Memorability, underscoring the format’s ability to capture attention and enhance brand impact. Additionally, campaigns with Pause Ads have driven a +106 per cent lift in foot traffic for advertisers.

Democratising Access to the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

• Building off the momentum of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, NBCUniversal is once again democratising access to its most premium inventory, enabling its presentation of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games programmatically.

• Through partnerships with Amazon DSP, FreeWheel Buyer Cloud, Google Display & Video 360, StackAdapt, The Trade Desk, Viant, and Yahoo DSP, NBCUniversal will open up private marketplace, biddable access for advertisers of all size to have the opportunity to connect with highly engaged audiences tuning into the Games.

• Additionally, following its successful launch at CES 2025, Universal Ads will serve as the first-ever, exclusive ads manager for NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Milan Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, offering advertisers even more opportunities to invest in NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Games.

PROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF TELEVISION

Beyond innovating the television ad experience, NBCUniversal is proving the performance of television for advertisers of all sizes, evidencing everything we already know about premium video – it drives real results for marketers. The latest results from our data collaborations and ad innovations demonstrate the staying power of NBCUniversal’s premium content.

Live Sports Measurement Partnership with Walmart Connect

• NBCUniversal and Walmart Connect are committed to bringing more transparency and fidelity to prove the performance of advertising in premium content.

• Recently, NBCUniversal and Walmart Connect expanded their longstanding partnership to provide in-flight measurement results for live sports programming for Haleon.

• Haleon launched campaigns for two brands in Q4—Sensodyne and Advil—both of which have demonstrated strong performance across the marketing funnel:

  • Sensodyne’s cross-platform campaign drove:

    • +200% ad likeability

    • Higher consideration with 61 per cent of product detail page viewers adding to cart

    • Strong lower-funnel efficiency with high conversion volume (55K) and transaction rate (5.5%) led to a $3.28 ROAS.

  • Additionally, Advil’s campaign saw:

    • +79 per cent standard ad memorability

    • Higher consideration with 64 per cent of product detail page viewers adding to cart

    • A clear path from consideration to conversion with a 92 per cent add-to-cart conversion rate

    • Strong efficiency with $5.41 ROAS

Data Collaboration with Instacart

• For the last few years, NBCUniversal has been building bespoke partnerships and data collaborations to better serve marketers and help them maximise their media effectiveness.

• The company’s longstanding partnership with Instacart continues to drive efficient returns and new customer acquisitions for marketers.

• A recent streaming campaign for a packaged food brand leveraged precise shopper targeting to deliver 6x return on every dollar spent and 38 per cent increase in sales from new brand buyers.

• Additionally, a recent DDL campaign for a major household products brand leveraged the broad reach of NBCUniversal’s linear ecosystem to drive a +55 per cent increase in sales from new brand buyers and a 4x return on every dollar spent.

Live in Browse

• Building on its strong performance in live sports, Peacock is expanding its Live in Browse feature – where live content auto-previews on the Peacock home page – to additional sports properties in its robust portfolio, as well as into entertainment franchises, like SNL, NBC100, and the Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center.

• Peacock offers an impactful placement for advertisers in Live in Browse where a brand’s logo is surfaced directly within the live event preview on the homepage, creating a seamless path into premium IP.

• Early results show powerful consumer response:

  • 8 in 10 viewers find Live in Browse engaging and say it makes them want to watch more live content on Peacock, while the current logo-only format delivers a 50 per cent lift in ad recall.

  • When paired with complementary sponsorship elements like Pre-Roll and Billboards, Live in Browse drives even greater impact, generating up to 3.8X gains in ad recall for advertisers vs. unexposed.

• With its prominent positioning on Peacock, Live in Browse also reaches over 80 per cent of users that visit Peacock on a given day.

Vertical Video

• At CES 2025, Peacock launched a new vertical video format, solidifying itself as a true cross-screen platform with short highlights, previews, and exclusive clips inside its mobile app.

• Vertical Video has been one of the largest drivers of frequency on the mobile app. To date, Peacock has seen sizeable growth since the early days of the platform with mobile viewership increasing +244 per cent over the last four years.

• Shortform content consumed on Peacock via mobile has seen a +257 per cent increase in viewership in just a year, and key to this growth is Bravo and Peacock’s unscripted content as well as NBC’s Late Night and Entertainment, proving to drive users to engage with Peacock on mobile. Consumers on both mobile and TV are watching twice as much as TV only.

• In 2026, Peacock’s vertical video format will become available to advertisers, making it even easier for brands to meet fans – particularly younger ones – wherever and however they watch.

Thanksgiving/Multiview

• Since launching during the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, Multiview has become a fan favorite as viewers have been excited for the dynamic viewing experience. Multiview has expanded to English Premier League and most recently the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which marked the first time the feature was offered for a live entertainment special on Peacock.

• More than 10% of viewers watched this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Multiview. Multiview during the Parade also posted the strongest average minute audience vs. other tentpole events offering Multiview within the last 12 months.

• Additionally, the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade drove increased viewership to Peacock, with over 15 per cent of viewership of the event on the streaming platform.

• The 2025 Thanksgiving Day Parade livestream now stands as Peacock’s #1 entertainment simulstream event to date.

NBA Features

• In October, NBCUniversal welcomed the NBA back to NBC and to Peacock for the first time ever with a series of new ad-supported product features, including Peacock Performance View and Peacock Scorecard.

• To date, the innovations are gaining traction with NBA viewers on Peacock, with tight integration between broadcast and product features driving nearly 20 per cent to engage with these features, proving that having new ways to watch and engage with the game are resonating strongly with both casual and avid fans.

• Both innovations have helped cement Peacock as one of the most innovative streaming services in the market, with over 80 per cent of NBA fans who used the innovations feeling more positive towards Peacock because of the new features.

Other posts by :

1. Bank: “Charter racing to the bottom”
2. SpaceX IPO in June?
3. Russia postpones Starlink rival
4. Why don’t lawmakers like Netflix?
5. Viasat taps Ex-Im Bank to finance satellite
6. Bank: TeraWave not a direct threat to AST SpaceMobile
7. SpaceX lines up banks for IPO
8. SES to FCC: “Don’t auction more than 160 MHz of C-band”
9. Morgan Stanley downgrades Iridium

Categories: Advertising, Articles, Broadcast

Tags: advertising, CES, NBA, NBCUniversal, thanksgiving