Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal said Thursday it hired John Lee in the newly created role of chief data officer as the media company aims to bolster and streamline its data operations.
Mr. Lee, previously global chief corporate strategy officer at Dentsu Group Inc.’s data-marketing agency Merkle, will be tasked with overseeing NBCU’s data operations, including collection, storage and matching capabilities meant to help marketers target ads on the company’s media properties, as well as inform corporate efforts such as product development, said Krishan Bhatia, president and chief business officer for NBCU Advertising and Partnerships.
John Lee, NBCU’s new data chief.
Photo:
Merkle
Mr. Lee, who reports to Mr. Bhatia, will also work to build a central data function to streamline efforts across the company’s divisions, such as its theme parks, TV and streaming business, film studio and marketing functions within its brands.
“The approach to data in most large companies has been one of executing at the business unit level, for specific use cases,” said Mr. Bhatia. “What NBCU is now doing is putting data front and center as an enterprise asset.”
The elevation of data comes amid other efforts by NBCU to strengthen its digital capabilities, such as the launch of its Peacock streaming service and the development of an app to improve the theme-park experience for visitors, said Mr. Bhatia.
One area of focus for NBCU is using data to improve ad targeting. Marketers that once bought TV ads based on viewers’ age and gender are now pushing for ads that reach the same user on different screens and reach specific audiences, such as moms in the market for a car.
The company last year introduced a new technology and sales platform for buying and targeting ads across NBCU properties. More recently, it announced an initiative to create a product it calls NBCU ID, which includes profiles of consumers based on data pulled from its various properties, as well as plans to operate a so-called clean room, which creates a privacy-compliant environment for matching data sets.
NBCU said it has adopted a data standard dubbed Ad-ID from ad industry trade bodies the Association of National Advertisers and the 4A’s. The initiative creates a unique label for individual ad campaigns to create more consistency in ad delivery across media properties, and gives marketers more control, for instance by letting them cap the amount of times an ad is shown, the company said.
“There’s no singular approach like you used to have in the television ecosystem,” said Mr. Bhatia. “There are different products, services, technologies, platforms and devices, so for a marketer to be able to manage across that they need something that provides the red thread, which is Ad-ID in this case.”
Write to Alexandra Bruell at [email protected]
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