NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino on why identity is the TV industry’s new currency

Despite the massive evolution happening in the TV industry, Linda Yaccarino, chairman, advertising sales and partnerships, NBCUniversal, believes “our industry is paralyzed to change.” 

The mega-media executive urged advertisers to forget past models and embrace future-forward metrics during the Ad Age Next: Streaming conference last week. 

“What's exciting in streaming is that we're learning what we knew all along—but then broadcast and cable abused that relationship with the consumer—consumers don't hate advertising,” said Yaccarino. The statement’s exception is key: unquestioned common practices in TV advertising are what Yaccarino said are holding back progress. The days of one-size advertising are over, said Yaccarino, who looks to streaming as a potential Eden of personalized advertising—for the advertiser. The future according to Yaccarino lies in identity metrics, declaring “identity is the new currency.”

'Dollars follow eyeballs'

While old-school buying focused on dissecting networks and dayparts or broadcast, cable, digital video and now streaming, that’s not how Yaccarino believes consumers behave anymore and that will hinder advertisers from achieving their ideal metric, which varies depending on each brand’s goals.

“The inferior state of measurement today is the single biggest contributor to media inflation,” said Yaccarino.

In the world of cross-screen consumption, Yaccarino said NBCU's Peacock has “reached measurement independence” in that she can match its audience to any chief marketer’s consumer. There are 30 million Peacock accounts and 60 million monthly active users, she said, of which 90% subscribe to its ad-supported tier.

First-party data has become a more critical selling point for NBCU this year, as the company opened up its data clean room to allow agencies to leverage NBCU’s pool of data and match it to their clients’ data in a privacy-safe manner. 

As more streamers rush to add ad inventory, such as Netflix and Disney+, and viewers trend further toward digital platforms away from cable TV, “dollars follow eyeballs,” said Yaccarino. Her prediction is that 2023 will see a rush of advertising spending in streaming in favor of omnichannel investments made on ID data.

Yaccarino is also bullish on the opportunities to connect content with commerce through shoppable advertising and the potential for augmented reality and virtual reality. 

Even amid an economic downturn—or perhaps because of it—Yaccarino said the need for innovation is that much more important. As industry leaders are called upon by company leadership to improve their return on investment, Yaccarino said “the answer really never is ... just stick with what you are doing and what you have always done.” 

Instead, she said “the window for status quo is officially closed. In a market like this, I think you have more opportunity to talk about innovation and really push back what you did last year, because today’s consumer doesn’t behave that way. So I think we have run out of excuses for our paralysis in the industry.”