Dive Brief:

• NBCUniversal is the first major media company to adopt Ad-ID, an advertising identity solution jointly developed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), according to an announcement.
• Ad-ID will act as the new standard for NBCUniversal's One Platform that unifies its ad-tech and sales offerings across TV and digital video. The solution intends to help partners cut down on ad frequency and repetition as well as provide greater quality control, more seamless ad delivery and better post-campaign reporting, among other benefits.
• NBCUniversal will start applying Ad-ID this week with the kickoff of its Tokyo Olympics coverage. The Comcast-owned company is also joining an Ad-ID Client Council and pushing other advertising stakeholders — including programmers, platforms, agencies and brands — to view the solution as a new industry standard.

Dive Insight:

NBCUniversal's adoption of Ad-ID is the latest move by the broadcaster to recognize converging needs around linear and digital media, building on the One Platform it introduced last year. The new identity solution is designed to help brands cut down on issues like ad repetition and frequency, which have plagued the streaming and connected TV spaces amid a radical acceleration in cord-cutting. Ad-ID accomplishes this by assigning a unique identifier to different ad campaigns, making them easier to keep tabs on.

NBCUniversal needs to deliver a high-quality streaming experience as it places more chips on its Peacock platform, which has ad-supported tiers and will host some of the network's Olympics coverage this summer. The 4A's and ANA — trade groups that represent ad agencies and marketers, respectively — hope other media players follow NBCUniversal's lead as streaming becomes a larger priority for both brands and consumers.

"We have a tremendous opportunity to collectively solve an ongoing industry issue: the need for frequency capping to address excessive ad repetition that's a nuisance for the consumer," said Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO of the 4A's, in a statement. "Ad-ID and its ubiquitous application across all channels and platforms as the data standard is critical to delivering the optimal consumer experience — especially with the continued proliferation of streaming ad supported video."

Beyond making ads less redundant, Ad-ID hopes to deliver more high-quality, targeted campaigns. It stores metadata that brand partners can draw on to inform their strategies, and features the type of contextual and audience targeting capabilities that are in vogue as marketers contend with disruptions to other targeting tactics. More than 3,000 advertisers and 700 agencies in the U.S., including Lowe's, the Ad Council, Havas and Saatchi & Saatchi, are already using Ad-ID.

NBCUniversal is making other moves to center more of its business around data-driven and digital functions. The company just created a new chief data officer role, tapping John Lee, of Merkle, to fill the appointment that aims to help marketers better target their ads across its media properties, The Wall Street Journal reported. Merkle is owned by Dentsu, the Japanese ad holding group that has played a dominant role in marketing the Olympics.