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3. Smaller find their place in the games
No offense to the athletes, but small brands have already won the Olympics.
In March, NBCUniversal announced it would allow advertisers to buy ads programmatically for the first time for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, allowing more small and mid-market advertisers to showcase campaigns.
“Historically, the minimum spend required to appear in major live sports was very high, which made it untenable for anyone but huge brands,” Ross Benes, senior analyst of TV and streaming at Emarketer, told ADWEEK. “But dicing up the inventory programmatically will allow a greater number of brands, particularly smaller brands, to get in on the action.”
For advertisers who were previously on the outside looking in, the programmatic inventory allows them to showcase ads alongside the Olympics without paying the gold-standard pricing. ADWEEK previously reported on what NBCU is charging for programmatic Olympic advertising, and agencies indicated the lower cost creates more opportunities for clients, especially those without robust TV budgets.
“Because we’re buying it programmatically, we can layer on targeting,” Dom Johnson, associate director, brand media at Collective Measures, told ADWEEK. “It gets that benefit of the highest possible quality inventory and being alongside the Olympics, which sounds cool to everyone.” — Bill Bradley
4. Advertisers are happy to be in the background
