With the 2018 Winter Olympics set to begin from Pyeongchang on Feb. 8, NBCUniversal Media LLC is winding down what has been an expansive marketing campaign that has included audience segmentation aimed at boosting awareness and viewership for the competition from South Korea.
The U.S. rights-holder to the Olympics through 2032 has been deploying marketing tactics targeting six different groups, based on research that identified common psychographic traits in terms of their interest in the games.
NBC Sports Chief Marketing Officer Jenny Storms in an interview said "the Olympics are such an important property for NBCU and our parent Comcast Corp. that we wanted to gain insights, rooted in viewing data from the past, but by also taking a fresh look at the audience."
As such, NBCU has been pushing promos and content toward such groups as "torchbearers," who love everything about the games and approach them more holistically when compared with the other segments; "purists," whose engagement centers on interest in the competitions themselves; and "highlights heroes," who have a more casual relationship with the Olympics and tend to check out the must-have moments via digital platforms.
The more targeted approach is being coupled with a significant expansion in the number of spots NBCU is using to tout the 2018 Winter Games, compared with its predecessor from Sochi, Russia, in 2014. The programmer, which had bullish audience expectations for the 2016 Summer Games, given Rio de Janeiro's favorable time zones with the U.S., instead experienced linear slippage and greater-than-anticipated digital engagement, amid evolving changes in viewing habits.
Looking to reach audiences across myriad platforms, NBCU will provide a Winter Olympics record of 2,400 hours of linear and digital coverage from Feb. 8 through the closing ceremony Feb. 25. The company expects to garner more than $900 million in national advertising revenue, which would mark a Winter Games record.
Storms said the psychographic classifications stem from a 3,000-person study that sought to identify "needs, attitudes and behaviors" around the Games. "The study informed the groups and we followed up again online to dig for deeper data, testimonials and verbatims about how they view and interact with the Games."
In turn, Storms said NBCU has been fusing these segments with gender and age data from Nielsen Holdings PLC and airing promos within programming schedules on NBC and NBCU-owned cable networks and specific programming thereunto.
To that end, Storms said certain promos have been pushed toward torchbearers tuning in to NBC drama "Blacklist."
Viewers on E! (US) and Bravo (US) tend to fall into two categories: "heartstrings," who relate via the narratives and backstories of the games and athletes, and "stargazers," who are most interested in staying in the know about newsworthy moments and sensationalized narratives.
Storms said the promos, featuring more well-known Olympic athletes with a bit of celebrity, have been running on those networks.
For the group described as "major league Americans," who Storms said root for the home team and "bleed red, white and blue," NBCU inserted promos of American Olympians stating the second and third verses of "America The Beautiful" before a camera, into episodes of "Chicago Med" on NBC (US).
All told, NBCU over the promotional course will run about 7,200 spots for the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, up from the 5,500 that supported the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Much of the promotional content was gathered when U.S. Olympians convened in West Hollywood, Calif., last April and NBCU networks, owned-stations and affiliates conducted video and photo shoots, as well as during the United States Olympic Committee's Team USA Media Summit in September in Park City, Utah, where many Olympians and hopefuls train.
NBCU properties reach 93% of U.S. households on a monthly basis, according to Storms, who said the Olympic marketing efforts have also focused on messaging frequency. The Olympic push began 18 months ago, increased in 2018, and has ramped up during the five weeks from the end of December 2017 through the start of the games.
Overall, the Olympics will benefit from 2 billion impressions, with 40% of the gross ratings points coming during this late push, she said. Under the "symphony" approach, NBCU and Comcast are marshaling resources to promote the Olympics across their various linear, digital and social assets.
NBC's coverage of Super Bowl LII, which yielded the 10th largest audience in U.S. TV history with an average of 103.4 million viewers, was a key marketing component for the Winter Games. Five 60-second spots — telling the tale of five U.S. Olympians: skiers Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn, snowboarders Chloe Kim and Shaun White, and figure skater Nathan Chen — ran within Super Bowl-related programming, the game itself and a special edition of hit drama "This Is Us" on Feb. 4.
"Today" unveiled one of the spots each day last week ahead of the NFL championship games, and Storms said those spots are now airing in NBC's prime-time rotation in the days leading up to the Olympics.
Storms said NBCU will assess the tactics it deployed for Pyeongchang and use "the lessons learned" to guide promotional strategies for future Olympics.
