MAR 394Term Paper

User-Generated Content:
NBCUniversals Social Media Usage
By
Laura Lora
Dec. 11th, 2013


NBCUniversal is one of the worlds leading media and entertainment companies in the
development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information.
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Throughout
the years, the company has partnered with several other entities. These mergers have allowed
NBCUniversal to own and operate a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television
networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a
leading television stations group, world-renowned theme parks, and a suite of leading Internet-
based businesses.
The history of NBCUniversal reaches back more than a century and involves three
visionaries: David Sarnoff, the founder of NBC, Carl Laemmle, who created Universal, and
Ralph Roberts, who initiated Comcast. Their stories begin in the early 1900s when German
immigrant Carl Laemmle opens his first movie theater, and then soon after becomes involved in
all phases of film. At about the same time, a young Russian immigrant named David Sarnoff
imagines a world connected by wireless communication that would bring news and
entertainment into the home. In 1926, Sarnoffs dream comes true with the launch of NBC,
National Broadcasting Company. For the following 40 years, these two men would accomplish
the unimaginable. Then, in 1963, a young entrepreneur named Ralph Roberts buys a tiny cable
system and initiates what would later become a remarkable American business success story
called Comcast. In 2004, Universal and NBC merge to create a media powerhouse that in 2013,
with a full acquisition by Comcast, positions itself as one of the market leaders in the media
industry expanding its TV networks to Telemundo Network, NBC Entertainment, NBC News,
NBC Sports & Olympics, Bravo, Chiller, CNBC, Comcast Sports Group, E! Entertainment
Television, Esquire Network, G4, Golf Channel, MSNBC, mun2, Oxygen Media, Sprout, Syfy,
Universal HD, USA Network, Weather Channel, etc.

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NBCUniversal
All three companies were founded by men of modest origins who were driven by the
dream of making their visions a reality. It is thanks to these men that NBCUniversal is known
today for its innovative approach to movies, broadcasting, and cable distribution. Nonetheless,
NBCUniversals competition is right behind its tail, which is why NBCUniversal is always one
step ahead of the game investing on what will be the next big thing: Social TV. NBCUniversal
does not only own several digital media hits such as DailyCandy, Fandango, Hulu, and iVillage,
among others. Recently, it has also been focusing all of its efforts into engaging TV viewers with
social media as they watch their favorite shows.
The competition is tough, not only because of the other broadcast companies in the
market, but because of the continuous development of new technologies. With the success of on-
demand TV and internet streaming providers such as Netflix and Hulu, NBCUniversal has been
devoting most of its time demonstrating to advertisers that broadcast TV is not dead. In March
2013, the television industry saw a huge demo decline in viewership. Fox declined 23%, ABC
fell 8%, NBC dropped 7% and CBS was off by 3%,
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further reason why NBCUniversal has seen
much change this past year.
Linda Yaccarino, the President of Ad Sales for NBCUniversal, has implemented a new
strategy called Project Symphony. For the first time, NBCU will single out projects to promote
them heavily across all platforms, including digital and social. Another example of change is
NBCUs Social TV in which hashtags appear as part of lower thirds on TV screens during
newscasts, shows, movies, and events. These hashtags entice viewers to engage in social media
conversations to connect with other network fans, to learn more about the characters in a show,
to watch never-before-seen scenes of a movie, or to participate for a chance to win prizes. NBCU
viewers are being pulled in all directions, but specifically in the social media route.

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Jeanine Poggi, Ad Age
Social collaboration and social networkingthey're here to stay," says Bradley
Epperson, Vice President of Commercial Operations at NBCU.
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Also this year, Yaccarino
organized an internal event which will hopefully become an annual tradition for NBCU
employees. Marketing and advertising teams from NBCUniversal were asked to gather for what
was called the Innovation Summit. This gathering consisted of a 2-day conference with the
theme Social Media, that all NBCU creatives were required to attend. The whole purpose of
the conference was to get the creative juices flowing in order to find new ways to engage an
audience and form better relationships with advertisers and clients. In addition, marketing and
advertising teams were able to meet and converse, socializing and sharing ideas. The bond of
NBCUs salesforce definitely grew stronger after this event. Previously, the company had 256
different views into one of its major advertisers. Today, with the help of the Innovation
Summit and the implementation of Project Symphony, NBCUs salesforce provides a single
view. Everyone involved in the process can see what each advertiser is doing on other properties,
which translates to better relationships with important clients and a dramatic increase in cross-
sales.
Social media usages in NBCU are plenty, but one very successful example, that came out
of an idea from the Innovation Summit, was this years Modern Family: Fan Appreciation
Day. Even though the show is an original production of ABC, the event was sponsored by USA,
the cable network that picked up syndication rights to the series. To celebrate Modern Family in
USA, a campaign was launched when the show was on asking for fans to go on social media and
tweet their favorite Modern Family moment with the hashtag #MoFy. According to USAs
Executive Vice President of Marketing and Digital, Alexandra Shapiro, About 3000 viewers
responded and 600 were selected to come to Los Angeles on their own coin, no less to see

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Salesforce.com
the cast do a reading of the selected episode.
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This amazing event set at the Westwood Village
Theaters also included a red carpet on which the stars of the show interacted and took pictures
with fans.
NBCU took it to another level by doing a strategic partnership with Microsoft. To further
engage the 0-17 year old demographic, Microsoft gave their newest Surface tablet to Nolan
Gould, one of the youngest members of the cast. On the red carpet, Nolan tweeted and took
pictures with fans using the Surface tablet. Nolans tweets and pictures were being published live
on the Modern Family official Twitter account but also on a 15ft-high Social Media Wall on
site at the event. As fans waited for the table read to begin, trivia questions, behind the scenes
interviews and terrific clip packages from the show were also projected on this wall and kept the
fans engaged and enthusiastic. At all times throughout the event, fans were encouraged to take
photos, tweet, post on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and use any other social media to share the
#MoFyDay experience.
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The event was a hit, both NBCU and Modern Family fans were pleased.
Another excellent implementation of social media to increase viewership and audience
engagement was Watch What Happens Live: The Wedding. The late night show which is
hosted by Andy Cohen and is featured on Bravo, one of NBCUs most social cable networks,
devoted an entire episode to broadcast two lucky winners getting married live on national
television. Even though the episode was released in October 2013, the contest began 3 months
earlier in July when Andy announced the wedding contest and encouraged couples heading down
the isle to participate for a chance to get hitched in the WWHL clubhouse in New York City.
Contestants were required to write a 200 word essay answering the questions Why do
you want to get married in the clubhouse? and submit it to BravoTV.com. In addition, the

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Access Hollywood

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Diane Gordon, Studio System News
participating couples had two weeks to send in a video about the wedding proposal, how the
couple met, and how the lovebirds knew they had found "the one."
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Thousands of videos were
received and published on the Bravo website. A panel decided on the top 5 finalists which were
featured on all of Bravos social media networks. It was up to the public to select the winners.
Once again, NBCUniversal stepped it up a notch by partnering with FIAT who paid for
all the expenses of the wedding and even offered a wedding gift: a 2014 four-door FIAT. In
return, FIAT was featured on lower thirds for each and every show on the network. Each lower
third had the FIAT logo and cars but it also encouraged viewers to go on social media and vote
for the wedding contest winners. Moreover, viewers acted as wedding planners and answered
through social media What should be the wedding theme, Bollywood, Old Hollywood, or
Halloween? and Which Real Housewife should be the maid of honor, NeNe Leakes, Lisa
Vanderpump, or Teresa Giudice? among many other details of the wedding. The result was a
ridiculously fun WWHL episode with high ratings that was entirely written by the audience.
NBCUniversal has many other tricks under its sleeve including a major strategic
partnership with the social media giant, Twitter. In an attempt to expand Xfinity TVs target
market, Comcast, the owner of NBCUniversal and provider of Xfinity TV, has partnered up with
Twitter to develop and eventually release a new Twitter feature called See It that will be made
available exclusively to Xfinity TV customers. Twitter is host to millions of real-time
conversation about live broadcast of television shows. With See It, Xfinity TV customers who
discover new shows and movies in their Twitter feeds will be able to tune-in to those programs
with the click of a button. The See It button will enable a menu of consumption options, such as
tune to live TV, set a DVR, enable a reminder or buy theater tickets through Fandango, etc.
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Examiner.com
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Comcast
The feature will cover a wide suite of NBCU networks including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC,
USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen and E! Some of the shows that will be seen on Twitter include The
Voice, The Blacklist, Chicago Fire, The Michael J. Fox Show, Sunday Night Football, The Today
Show, the Sochi Olympics and more. Comcast is taking a leap forward in social TV by enabling
Twitter users to more easily find and view the shows they want to watch and discover new
shows. Twitter complements the live viewing experience and is an ideal partner for Comcast and
NBCUniversal says Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation.
The success, and potential, of the mentioned social media implementations by NBCU
prove how effective and impactful social media usage can be. By complementing an amazing
event with social media components, as seen on the Modern Family: Fan Appreciation Day
event, a below the line advertising strategy can take a 180 degree turn. Engaging and entertaining
fans with different aspects of social media allowed the event to create positive feedback not only
from fans who attended the event, but also from users all over world who saw the tweets and
pictures that were posted live. USA, best known in recent years for "blue-sky dramas" like Royal
Pains and Suits, wants to use Modern Family to introduce original scripted comedies to the
network and expand its viewership reach.
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NBCU definitely considered the October event as a
success after November ratings showed that Modern Family was the most watched show on
Wednesday nights reaching millions of viewers nationwide.
Advertisers tend to worry about how TV strategies that involve second-screen viewing
can distract audiences from their message. However, the NBCU implementations at hand and
data show that there is higher viewer engagement with brand ads when second-screen viewing is
part of such ad campaign. According to a series of studies by Time Warner MediaLab, viewers
are highly engaged for 48% of the time with a TV ad when same brand ad is seen in both the TV

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Jeanine Poggi, Ad Age
program and the second screen. Trivia games and social feeds command the most attention of all
second-screen content, especially during commercial breaks.
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Watch What Happens Live: The Wedding showed advertisers that launching a
campaign with multidimensional elements of social media is not only possible but effective as
well. Viewers were engaged from the beginning of the wedding contest until the end of the
Watch What Happens Live episode which broadcasted the ceremony. They felt a special
connection to the bride and groom since the viewers had the important role of, not only voting
for the winners, but also deciding all sorts of wedding details, e. g. the color of the FIAT car,
who would be the ring bearer, the dress of the bride, the flavor of the cake, etc. Bravo managed
to efficiently engage viewers with a second-screen (mobile device, tablet, or laptop) while they
were watching their favorite shows.
Social media is a tool that when used properly, can enable the success of an entire
campaign. In the social media world a small effort, or short tweet for example, can create a large
impact on a brands target. However, having an account on each and every existing social media
site or using hashtags on every post, is not going to guarantee a profit. These days everyone is on
social media and only those brands that come up with creative ways to engage users, will be the
ones truly using this social tool to its maximum potential and seeing the financial benefits.
Although NBCU has had its downfalls with social media in the past, this year has been all about
effective social media usage for a reason. When a social media campaign manages to create
relevant conversations, personal connections and interactive engagement that is focused towards
the users needs and wants, not the brands objectives, the result is social media content that
viewers are more than happy and excited to play around with.


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Ad Week
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