Comcast and NBCUniversal Open Cross-Promotional Ad Strategy

For several years, NBCUniversal and its parent, Comcast, have been giving their own television shows and movies corporate cross-promotion. But in the last 18 months, the media conglomerate has quietly opened the marketing strategy, which it calls Symphony, to outside advertisers like Microsoft. The idea is to give marketers the ability to use Comcast’s broad range of assets -- which include television channels, websites, theme parks and talent -- for ad campaigns. An internal creative agency of sorts, called the Content Innovation Agency, helps marketers create the content for the promotion.

In addition to Microsoft, NBCUniversal has teamed up with 20th Century Fox to market the movie “Night at the Museum 3,” with Disney to promote “Frozen,” and with Chase bank as well. The media company hopes to sign up two marketers in 2015 and plans to promote the cross-promotion strategy at the annual advertising festival in Cannes. Marketers said Symphony allowed them to leverage NBCUniversal’s size to reach the millions of consumers who watch its programming, go on its websites and visit its theme parks. But industry analysts say the real appeal for both the advertiser and NBCUniversal may be much simpler: money. Advertisers may be getting a discount to sign up for the multiplatform strategy.