Marcello Hernández doesn’t normally wake up before 2pm, at least not according to his mom. But for T-Mobile, the SNL star was on stage bright and early—though with sunglasses firmly on.
On Tuesday, the telecom made its second-ever appearance at NewFronts to announce new data-backed advertising solutions from its advertising arm, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions (T-Ads), and Hernández and his mother, Isabel Cancela, who star in a T-Mobile ad spot as part of a partnership with the brand, teed off the morning presentation. After Hernández spoke about his personal connection to T-Mobile, execs segued into how they plan to deepen marketing connections with a new collection of ad offerings, including highlights on its lifestyle app, expanded in-store retail media opportunities, and AI-powered data analysis.
“We’ve created this very compelling suite of solutions across app ecosystems,” JP Colaco, SVP and chief T-Ads officer, told Marketing Brew. “Because of the unique data that we have and the ability to apply that data to your marketing campaigns, we can provide atypically high results for marketers across the group.”
Out of the app and into the night
In its mission to “create the most effective advertising platform in the world,” as Colaco put it onstage, presenters touted T-Ads’s first-party data as key to solving advertising’s pain points of relevancy and integration.
Core to the pitch was highlighting T-Mobile’s owned and operated platforms like the T-Life app, where brands can leverage data brought to life by T-Mobile’s recent tech acquisitions, Vistar and Blis, to better inspire customer action. On the T-Life app, brands can participate in moments like T-Mobile Tuesdays, which rewards T-Mobile customers with free branded redemptions.
One recent campaign with Wingstop, Colaco said, “beat the redemption goal by 55% because our customers go do things based on what’s happening on T-Mobile Tuesdays and what their opportunity is.”
Beyond app-based opportunities, T-Mobile’s data powers its retail media network, which this year will expand beyond the company’s existing 35,000 in-store digital billboard screens to additional retailers across the country. The expansion will allow retailers to use T-Mobile’s connectivity and Vistar’s technology to prop up their own retail media networks, and Colaco said the service will be a “one-stop shop” that will use first-party data from both T-Mobile and retailers for ad targeting.
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Going beyond mobile customers presents new opportunities for advertisers and retailers alike, according to Vistar co-founder and CEO Michael Provenzano, and he told us that there are few limitations to what might make a good retailer or advertiser fit.
“The idea is that the software for powering these screens and helping monetize them should be applying to all retailers,” Provenzano told us. “What we’ve seen in our own stores is endemic-heavy. As you imagine, the products and services you sell in the store are the ones that want to advertise there, because you’re so close to the point of purchase for those consumers.”
All in on AI
The tech-du-jour of the marketing industry did not escape discussion at T-Ads’s event, and Colaco emphasized that AI tools are what will take advertising from “reactive to predictive.”
At the event, T-Ads’s head of advertising data, measurement, and partnerships, Andrea Zapata, highlighted how T-Mobile’s AI-powered analysis can build a fuller picture of potential customers. Rather than only looking at screen time–connected data, she emphasized the need for data that takes in activity off-screen, too.
The pitch—and NewFronts week, in general—might end up going against some wisdom from Hernández that he shared at the beginning of the morning. When asked whether he’s gearing up for another Domingo sketch, the comedian said he’s not making a lot of noise about it..
“I’ve found that that’s the best way to be,” Hernández said. “If you really want something, just don’t talk about it, and just be quiet and nice, and people sometimes give it to you.”