Dentsu International to become first NBCUnified agency partner

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

NBCUniversal has signed on Dentsu International, one of the largest global marketing and advertising agency networks, as the first agency partner of NBCUnified, its first-party data and identity platform.

The partnership will allow utilization of both person-level and household-level IDs from Dentsu’s M1 platform and consumer data products, as well as those of its advertisers, to directly integrate into NBCUnified’s identity platform.

This partnership allows for matches with NBCU’s database of NBCU IDs, which in its initial release will include 150 million person-level IDs tied to 80 million distinct households.

Dentsu and its media agency brands will be able to use its M1 platform on behalf of clients to match audiences using NBCUnified Consumer Match, and leverage NBCUniversal’s deep first-party knowledge of its consumers through NBCUnified Audiences.

This will allow them to develop greater insights and more in-depth, higher-performing custom audiences for targeting across premium NBCUniversal TV, video and display inventory.

Dentsu clients will benefit from advanced analytics and measurement capabilities enabled by NBCU and Dentsu cleanroom environments.

“At Dentsu, we pride ourselves on being leaders in driving relevancy and knowing people better than anyone. This first of its kind partnership with NBCU delivers an innovative addressability solution in the traditional marketplace that can be activated on right away. Bringing together IDs and data from Dentsu’s M1 platform, our clients, and NBCU will enable us to uncover more resonant audiences for our clients, fueling more effective media purchases that are fully transactable,” said Cara Lewis, Dentsu chief investment officer, in a statement.

NBCUnified was launched in January 2021 and builds upon NBCUniversal’s suite of advanced advertising tools and capabilities, including AdSmart for data-driven audience targeting on every screen to NBCU’s Audience Insights Hub for data interoperability.

NBCUnified was created to be fully interoperable, providing marketers a modern-day, privacy-minded solution to connect data spines ranging from agencies, third-party technology platforms, industry-wide initiatives, consortiums and NBCUniversal’s cleanrooms.

“Identity is increasingly becoming the new currency for the advanced television and digital video industry,” said John Lee, NBCU chief data officer in the statement. “With this partnership, NBCUniversal and Dentsu are taking a leadership position in accelerating our joint ability to allow clients to transact on identity and first-party data across our premium offerings at a level of scale and transparency never before possible. This presents our joint clients with a path forward to move away from black-box, panel-based systems to one where our joint identity pool of over 100 million households becomes the currency.”