NBCU Relies on Station Partners to Promote Olympics
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NBCU Relies on Station Partners to Promote Olympics 11.13.2013 NBCU's marketing team is all too aware that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, is just 90 days away. In fact, they've been acting as if the Sochi Olympics was right around the corner since the last Zambonis smoothed the ice rinks of Vancouver in 2010. The Olympics are a constant work in progress, says Scot Chastain, senior VP, affiliate marketing and development, NBC Television Network and former Vice Chair of PromaxBDA's board. "As we are working on Sochi, we are also working on Rio [which will host the summer Olympics in 2016] at the same time." To promote the Olympics, which seems like such a huge event that it almost needs no promotion, NBC takes a multi-tiered approach, says John Miller, head, NBC Sports Agency, chief marketing office, NBC Universal Television Group. "Quite honestly, the interest in the Olympics peaks about three or four weeks before the games," says Miller. "At this point, about 50% of the public doesn't even know they are happening yet." One of those "very important tiers is the local and custom work we do with our TV-station affiliates. It's top priority for us and we put a significant amount of time and thought into those relationships," he says. While NBC dedicates quite a bit of national promo time to the two-week global sporting event both on NBC and on its many cable networks, it also focuses heavily on local promotion. "We try to make sure that for the stations the Olympics is a true local event," says Chastain. That means starting early with promos that feature local talent. These spots feature two athletes who won gold in Vancouver: Evan Lysacek, who won the men's figure skating competition and Shani Davis, who has twice won gold in the 1000 meter speed-skating event. Both men are from Chicago, and as Davis says, "as everyone knows, if you can't make it in Chicago, you can't make it anywhere." Another spot, set in Detroit, features the mixed pair figure skating team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White. NBC also works closely with local TV stations to design customized logos and Olympic identifiers. One of the perks of being an NBC affiliate is that those stations get exclusive rights to Olympics branding. "Only an NBC station can have a logo with the Olympics rings in it," says Chastain, and all of that branding is carefully regulated and monitored by the U.S. Olympics Committee, with whom NBC works closely. "As part of that local identifier, NBC provides its affiliates with a giant graphics package that stations can use to promote, cover and sell the games," says Chastain. "We have lots of graphics available for stations now. They've been out there for many months." In September, NBC started delivering stations locally-focused sponsorable vignettes that feature Olympic athletes. "Right now, there are 27 different regional versions of these vignettes available," says Chastain. NBC partnered with production house Studio City "to do a significant amount of that local work," Chastain says. Stations also currently have six national spots they can put in rotation, but by the time the games air, NBC will have provided TV stations with at least 60 regional and another 20 national spots, says Anne Nicholas, NBC's VP of affiliate marketing for the East Coast. NBC's Olympic work with its affiliates goes far beyond promotional spots, however. For the past few games, NBC has offered affiliates a half-hour access show that covers the day's events, and that can be locally customized. Talent from many markets travel to cover the Olympics, so local production teams are on-site and able to mix in their own narration and segments with the network-produced program. "Historically, we've gotten about 65% clearance for that show," says Chastain. "Stations are realizing just how valuable that is, not just from a marketing standpoint but from a sales standpoint. They get to sell 20 units of advertising inventory in every half-hour." NBC also puts up an Olympics Web site at www.nbcolympics.com, which is already up and running with Sochi previews and reminders of Vancouver. During the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the site got as many as two billion page views a day, says Miller. NBC affiliates run a customized version of the site, accessible via such URLs as www.nbcolympics.com/WNBC or www.nbcolympics.com/KUSA (the call letters for the NBC-owned station in New York or the Gannett-owned NBC affiliate in Denver). To access these local versions, viewers input their zip code and their cable provider in order to authenticate their access. That's also true for the apps that NBC now produces for the Olympics: NBC Sports Live Extra, which streams events live, and the Primetime Companion, which is a second-screen app that matches up with NBC's produced primetime broadcast. Something new this year is NBC's pro-social, get-healthy-and-fit campaign that can air on stations' "O-zone" Web sites," says Nicholas. The campaign will encourage participants to post pictures of themselves getting healthy and fit during winter. "The Olympics are inspiring that way," says Nicholas. "Whether the stations want to build on the campaign, get a local sponsor for it or make it part of their Tweeting regime, it's up to them." For NBC, the Olympics is like a giant circus that comes to town every two years, and NBC's marketers work hard to make the absolute most of it for everyone involved. "The Olympics has a glow that lasts about 48 hours and then people get on with their lives," says Miller. "But while it's there, it explodes.".