SinglePoint nabs NBC deal

NBC Universal has consolidated all of its interactive TV and participation media campaigns under one roof: SinglePoint. The mobile marketing company has been ramping up to takeover all NBC property campaigns for more than four months now and waited until it was driving all of the media conglomerate’s interactive TV content before making the announcement.
“What we’re powering for NBC Universal and multiple properties within it . is what we would call participation media,” said Doug Busk, VP of industry relations at SinglePoint. “It’s a fairly extensive and wide-reaching relationship as far as the services we’re providing them.”
NBC is continuing to heavily promote more interaction with its various audiences by inviting them to take interactive polls, participate in sweepstakes and more, primarily through SMS.
“They are driving multiple forms of interactivity via multiple forms of programming at this point,” Busk said. “There’s a variety of applications that are broadcast within the show itself.”
SinglePoint is now managing and executing a slew of campaigns including mobile voting, sweepstakes, contests, breaking news text alerts, and personalized content from the many NBC Universal properties such as NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, USA, NBC Sports, NBC News, iVillage and venue-related activities for Universal theme parks.
Busk said the offerings are still largely in an experimentation phase, thus making it difficult to pull thematic numbers from results and overall usage. The level of participation and scope of the offerings are largely based on the typical audience of each show, he added.
“The experimentation is aggressive and really runs across all of their properties,” he said. “The lessons are being learned right now as to which is the best method and which is most successful.”
Busk added that there are plenty of things coming up with the new seasons of shows underway, including innovative offerings tailoring specifically to sports fans.
“There is no question that the wireless industry has given new meaning to participation media by adding entertainment, social and economic value to some of today’s most popular TV programs,” said Rich Begert, president and CEO of SinglePoint. “We can not express enough how extremely pleased we are to work with NBC Universal and drive the mobile component of their leading franchises.”
He added: “We expect this strategic partnership will set a new bar for participation media in the United States.”