NBCUniversal is rolling out a “Live in Browse” feature on Peacock along with other advertising capabilities aimed at improving engagement and arming brands with more data.
“Live in Browse” highlights live events on the home page of Peacock, automatically playing in the top row when the app is opened. NBCU also said its “pause ad” format, introduced several years ago, will now be available during live events. Peacock early on after launching in 2020 put an emphasis on live sports and news. NBCU said pause ads have driven upticks of 43% in both site visits for brands as well as memorability compared with standard ads.
Another area getting a boost is creative ad performance. Generative AI, machine learning, and statistical models can help advertisers understand historical performance of ad creative within specific content and predict how creative will perform in several specific target areas. NBCU said it is now expanding those capabilities to live events, with models build for golf as well as an updated Super Bowl ad model for the February 2026 game.
The Paris Olympics, which were a significant win for NBCU and parent Comcast, point the way for the Milan Cortina Winter Games in 2026. NBCU’s Olympic ad model, which uses more than 30 billion data points derived from more than 1,600 ads spanning four editions of the Olympics generated 73% more message memorability for creative materials using the optimization tools, the company said.
NBCU continues to be a platform that evolves while staying true to their core product. Them and other media companies have exciting plans for 2025 that should shape the future of media consumption for the next few years.