NBC Gets a Bronze for Online Video Advertising During Olympics

Monday, August 25th, 2008 by Janet Meiners

NBC Gets a Bronze for Online Video Advertising During Olympics

The Olympics is over and US advertisers should be pleased with the results. Not only did we take home a lot of gold from athletes, this Olympics brought record web site traffic - and an experiment in online video advertising. The two weeks long Olympics was a test in how video advertising would play out.

According to eMarketer - NBC - the lead sponsor of the games, gets a bronze for their work. They brought in $5.75 million for running video ads. The Wall Street Journal reported NBC made only a quarter of what CBS Sports made streaming a college basketball tournament earlier this year.

The number would probably be higher but NBC made some mistakes. First, they required people to download software to watch video clips. NBC used Microsoft’s Silverlight instead of Flash to stream video. Since most of us don’t have Silverlight, we had to download it - but I’m sure some skipped it altogether. Second, NBC didn’t preimere footage on their site. So while NBC doubled traffic to their site, Yahoo did even better, according to Nielsen. Yahoo showed some events online before they aired on television. Exclusivity tends to work better on television than on the web.

As far as the official site of the Olympics - Beijing2008.cn - Neilsen says the US averaged 554,800 unique visitors a day the first week (from 9 August – 15 August 2008). The site is in Chinese, which seems like quite a barrier, until you click on the English version. When you go to video you’re back to NBC.

Overall, I’m going to miss watching the Olympics, yet like many other Americans, I stayed up late watching them and I’m looking forward to getting more sleep. However, if I could’ve watched more online, sleep deprivation wouldn’t be such an issue.

Surprisingly, I didn’t watch any of the Olympics online - with high definition television and the family around - I’d rather watch it in the living room than on my laptop. But since I did miss the closing ceremonies, I’m downloading Silverlight right now.

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15 comments on “NBC Gets a Bronze for Online Video Advertising During Olympics”

Fifty Studio Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

NBCs biggest mistake was using Silverlight…

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Mike Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

I ignored the whole downloading Silverlight thing. I don’t want to download something just to watch a few Olympics events on my computer. I just didn’t seem worth the effort.

My little Asus EeePC is the only computer I would have considered watching the videos on and I don’t think Silverlight officially runs on Linux.

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Jaan Kanellis Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Obvious to everyone above requiring Microsoft’s Silverlight was the biggest mistake. I would be willing to guess they could have doubled or triple the revenue if it wasnt for that.

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Ashley Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

I think it is a huge mistake
Haroon Hameed Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

Yes if they would have added any alternative from silverlight then they would have 10 times more Viewers for their Live Streaming.

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Andy Beal Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

The big winner? Microsoft who I’m sure loved getting Silverlight in front of a bunch of Flash users.
Mike Says:

August 25th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

Will Microsoft really be the winner when the other sites realize that NBC would have had more users and more revenue if they hadn’t used Silverlight?

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Ruriko Says:

August 26th, 2008 at 5:21 am

Is NBC an American channel?

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Download Movies Online.Watch Movies Online For Free Full Movie Downloads Says:

August 26th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Its mistake
PER Says:

August 26th, 2008 at 10:29 am

Big big mistake
PER Says:

August 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am

I did not download that either. No way…just to watch the game?
Nicole Price Says:

August 26th, 2008 at 10:55 am

I chose not to watch at all due to the silly requirement of installing silverlight.

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NBC Has Some Success With Internet Video Ads | Your Online Marketing Guide Says:

August 29th, 2008 at 10:44 am

[...] Source [...]
Nick Nolen Says:

September 1st, 2008 at 3:35 am

Not sure if Silverlight ruined it but if you take a look at these stats it seems those sites that used Flash did better no matter what type of Olympic videos they had…

http://www.divinitymetrics.com/blog/2008/08/27/beijing-olympics-online -video-metrics-summary/
Twilight | IPTV Blog Says:

October 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

[...] with factors such as the Silverlight install (which is nowhere near as seamless as Flash’s) cited as being a reason. [...]

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