Since it was first announced in January 2022, NBCUnified has scaled to around 200 million IDs and 90 million households, becoming the underpinning of how NBCU partners with agencies and clients to connect marketer data with the company’s first-party data.

In addition, 60% of the company’s campaigns on its streaming portfolio are already based on first-party data and advanced advertising segments, leveraging both marketer data as well as other unique data sets.

With the new partnership, NBCU looks to build on those numbers and capabilities, improving interoperability at scale.

“In the past, the way you would actually merge datasets through crosswalks was both operationally inefficient as well as high cost because you had lots of different vendors involved in that process,” Bhatia said. “And we increasingly believe that there can be a more direct connection between marketers and programmers like ourselves through platforms like Blockgraph that take out a whole bunch of the inefficiency that exists, take care of the permissioning of data matching use cases and allow us to grow that 60% of our business.”

A more efficient future

When it comes to unlocking the value of data-driven TV, Manningham noted that the essentials include making sure there is true data control, fidelity and safety throughout the process as well as making sure you’re matching with scale and simplicity in a fast, effective way.

“If you think about where we are in the industry as the world is starting to go towards more AI, I think being able to bring together first-party datasets and use them in an effective, ethical and very efficient fashion, we’re entering the stage where TV will ultimately become even greater of a marketing vehicle, and it’s already the best,” Manningham said.

For Bhatia, the partnership represents another way of encouraging industry collaboration and breaking down silos in an increasingly fragmented video ecosystem. It’s also a push to allow marketers to connect with diversified audiences beyond broad demographic segments.

“This is another massive step forward for us to be able to give marketers the tools to be able to tailor and target and measure their marketing messages to the people that matter, first and foremost,” Bhatia said. “And doing that as efficiently as possible and at scale, we’re looking forward to many more partnerships to help unlock that.”