Samsung Ads is strictly Team Coco.
At its Tuesday morning IAB NewFronts presentation in New York, Samsung Electronics’ advertising arm revealed several new, performance-focused solutions as well as comedy legend Conan O’Brien’s first-ever FAST channel.
Starting later this month, Samsung TV Plus, Samsung’s free, ad-supported streaming service, will launch The Conan O’Brien TV channel. This 24/7 programming is curated as 30-minute collections of clips featuring the best of Conan’s late-night archives, with everything from sketch comedy to celebrity guests.
O’Brien earned the title of Adweek’s 2022 Media Visionary for his influence across late-night, broadcast, cable, podcasting and streaming, and Cathy Oh, vp global head of marketing at Samsung Ads, said the comedian’s first FAST channel has been in the works for a while.
“From what I know, he’s been thinking about it for some time,” Oh told Adweek. “I think a part of it was that he was trying to build the content. I still remember all of those vignettes and little 30-minute or even shorter sometimes, eight and ten-minute, little blurbs that he used to do.”
With interviews from big names, including Ryan Reynolds, Tom Hanks, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell, O’Brien’s channel has 100 hours of programming lined up for the launch, with more to come.
Oh assured Adweek that the channel is “definitely binge-able.”
“What we’re seeing is that Samsung TV Plus happens to feel like a destination for Samsung home users,” Oh said.
Beyond adding O’Brien’s channel to Samsung TV Plus’ growing catalog of more than 250 live channels in the U.S., Samsung Ads is launching several performance-focused solutions, from measurement to shopping, to help marketers better reach their audiences.
Building a data community
Among the new additions, the company is unveiling its Samsung TV and You Community, a new panel measurement offering designed to provide advertisers, marketers and publishers granular data about a consumer’s television consumption.
Oh credits Justin Evans, global head of analytics and insights for Samsung Ads, for driving the panel program internally. According to the company, the program uses audio ACR technology to measure the holistic TV content consumption of individual viewers within Samsung households, across both linear television channels and streaming services.