NBCUniversal and Vox Media have announced a cross-platform ad sales partnership that represents the first collaboration between the two companies since NBCUniversal tendered a $200 million investment into the conglomerate behind The Verge, Eater, Racked, and Re/code last August.
The two companies announced today an advertising tool called Concert that will vend ads across their combined television and digital properties. Concert will offer “premium, safe environments” for ads — which can include branded content, native ads, video, text, and photos — NBCU’s chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships, Linda Yaccarino, told AdWeek.
While marketers have often worried about ad viewability online, Concert ads will help with “awareness creation, identity creation, brand building — the kind of things that television and magazines have been good at,” added Vox chairman and CEO Jim Bankoff.
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The deal gives NBCU access to Vox’s younger audiences. Advertisers, for instance, can purchase spots on Bravo’s Top Chef as well as Vox’s food-oriented Eater, or across NBC’s The Tonight Show and The Verge.
NBCUniversal also announced a $200 million investment in BuzzFeed last August, and the two companies have since partnered on cross-platform ad initiatives as well. In February, for instnace, American Express purchased a package comprising posts on BuzzFeed as well as 30 minutes of NBC airtime.
