Hot Takes: Key Takeaways From The Winter Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics wrap up this weekend, and we asked our TVREV Thought Leaders Circle members for their thoughts on the Games. 

Mediaocean VP of Social Strategy Megan Gall talked about the role social media played in the Games and how brands can take advantage of the buzz by monitoring and participating in it.     

Global in nature, rich in history, layered with stories of hardships and hard work turning to gold – what, if any other live event, conjures such widespread emotion and pride like the Olympics? There is tremendous opportunity before, during and after the Games for brands to capture and engage their target audiences. The rise in social media reliance has changed even something as traditional as the NBC Olympics broadcast. Despite producing thousands of hours of content, a staggering number of individuals will turn to TikTok, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram for news, updates, and streaming video clips before tuning in to NBC. Brands now need to consider real-time “moments” and personalization opportunities via social platforms to make the Olympic connection. Leveraging specific athletes and stories, ensuring creative frameworks have the flexibility to quickly update based on results and being a part of the conversation is essential for brands to keep up. This kind of event epitomizes the opportunity for enhanced social offerings that feature Social Personalization and Dynamic Creative Optimization. This all gives marketers ways to plan highly personalized campaigns far in advance while adapting them as needed on the spur of the moment.

TVSquared Chief Strategy Officer Bob Ivins spoke to the many advantages of NBCU’s decision to live stream the Games via its streaming app Peacock, especially in terms of targeting and measurement.

NBCU's decision to live stream all Winter Olympics content via Peacock, in addition to traditional linear, further cements CTV as the ultimate 'win-win-win' for audiences, media owners and advertisers. For Olympics advertisers in particular, the ability to take advantage of streaming's incremental reach, sophisticated measurement and targeting capabilities for the first time to maximize campaign awareness, reach and performance cannot be overstated. For media owners who won't want to miss out on coveted audiences and ad dollars, airing tentpole events via linear alone is no longer an option.

Conviva Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alex Klausner, spoke to how Conviva’s data showed a massive increase in streaming viewership, especially as compared to the 2018 Games.

Nothing brings the Olympics to the forefront of the world stage like the Opening Ceremony and this year millions of people streamed the event, contributing to a 349% increase in streaming viewership as compared to the 2018 Opening Ceremony day as found by Conviva in our recent Olympics report. The massive growth in single-day time spent streaming on the day of the 2022 Olympics Opening Ceremony as compared to 2018’s Opening Ceremony day highlights the progress of the streaming industry over the past four years, both in its ability to live stream content and surface it to customers who want to watch.

LG Ads Solutions Head of Research, Justin Fromm spoke to the ubiquity of the Olympics across all media and the need for better cross-platform measurement.

The big news about the start of the Olympics was that they were DOA. The truth is much more complicated and is representative of the state of TV today. The Olympics are everywhere — from linear TV to streaming on Peacock, to YouTube and TikTok. This year's Olympics may not be great — or this may be the best Olympics ever — and it's exactly why the industry needs unified, cross-platform measurement.

iSpot.tv CEO Sean Muller pointed out some of the advantages inherent in the alternative currency for measuring the Games his firm provided for NBCU.

Everyone is so used to comparing the ratings to previous Olympics. We’re really creating new benchmarks here. We’re  transitioning the industry to think about the metrics that matter for the consumer and advertisers. We’re less focused on history. We’re more in the moment of the value that we’re bringing to advertisers.

Tubular Labs Head of Content & Product Marketing,  Kate Ginsburg focused on the huge role social video played, and how it allowed both brands and athletes to better connect with their audiences.

Social video is a key resource for audiences to consume content - and live sports is no different. As watching habits evolve across traditional channels, we see sports fans also gobbling up content across social video. Social video provides a huge opportunity, not just for rights holders, but also brands and athletes to connect with fans and build communities before, during and after the life of a broadcast.

Our TVREV Take is that NBCU’s decision to stream all of the events on Peacock was a huge breakthrough for CTV on many levels.

It allowed consumers to connect with the Games in a more user-friendly manner, it allowed for better and more granular cross-platform measurement and helped NBCU to prove out its decision to reach beyond Nielsen for that measurement, and finally, it proved, for those remaining doubters, that streaming could, from a technology standpoint, handle a weeks-long live event.

We also agree with those who pointed out the value of social media in curating the highlights of the many events, which provided an ideal opportunity for brands to connect with their customers.

Finally, it proved out the value of live events as a way to get the bulk of the audience all focused on the same thing at the same time in what has otherwise become an incredibly fractured media ecosystem.