For NBCUniversal, SXSW was a place to bring fans in deeper—and there’s more to come

For Bravo fans and entertainment industry insiders alike, NBCUniversal was hard to miss at South by Southwest this year.

With several execs on festival panels and Play with Peacock, an activation at the Thompson Hotel that brought new Peacock features to life, the brand planted its flag among the many studios, streamers, and IP-based experiences that took up temporary residence in Austin.

One of the company’s biggest priorities was to introduce Your Bravoverse, NBCU’s new AI-driven vertical video product that comes complete with an AI avatar of Andy Cohen, according to Kimberly Francella-Faver, SVP of brand partnerships and marketing.

“What we realize about our audiences and the fandom that we have at NBCU that is really unique is that they want to be part of everything—so that’s not just watching the shows, that is immersing in it,” Francella-Faver told Marketing Brew. The streaming service’s viewers and consumers, she added later, are “like our brand ambassadors.”

While the Bravo world is rich with immersive franchises, NBCU isn’t the only entertainment brand recognizing the value in sustained audience engagement. Disney+ recently announced the aptly named Verts, its own world-extending vertical video product, while Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said at a recent press event that the streamer plans to continue investing in IRL engagement plays like Netflix House. Across SXSW, streamers and studios like Prime Video and Focus Features also brought new projects to life with in-person touchpoints, merch, and interactive photo ops.

We spoke with Francella-Faver at SXSW about the entertainment marketing trends that won’t be going away any time soon, NBCU initiatives, and what makes a good brand partnership.

When you talk about your viewers being your ambassadors, I feel like that’s so related to the creator world. How do you at NBCU work with that world?

We’re definitely going to get into this space in a much bigger way with creators, because an episode ends and it’s like, how do we keep our fans and our consumers integrated into our content even more?...For us, it’s so emotional, and people want to feel connected, and they want to feel like they’re part of a community. Especially with Bravo, the fans are off the charts, but there is a community there, and they want to talk about it…it’s finding that community and talking about it. And creators are like our first stop. So we have worked with creators in a myriad of different ways. We just had a whole collective of creators in Milan Cortina for the Olympics. And when we talk about that social flywheel of, kind of pinging people back and forth to [the mobile screen] and the big screen, creators are the backbone of all of that.

It’s interesting, because I feel like the creator has simultaneously been around for so long, but also, not that long.

It feels very new, yet, like, duh. But it is something that people can no longer ignore. When you think about a very big and long-term campaign, I think in the past, [a creator strategy] used to be not optional, but it was incremental. It was like, “Oh, this would be great if we could do this,” and we’d experiment, and we do stuff. Now it’s almost a must-have.

You mentioned the Olympics. We have a podcast at Marketing Brew and did an episode on this—post-Olympics, what are you guys thinking about? How are you trying to carry that momentum forward?

Sports may not be in my blood, but I mean, you couldn’t pass [it] up. We just came out of a historic month of Legendary February, [with] the Super Bowl, the Milan Cortina Olympics, and the NBA All-Star Game in such a short period of time, where Peacock, again, was essential in all of the extra content.

When you think about that flywheel, one couldn’t live without the other, and we were pushing and pulling consumers and our fans back and forth between that at all times, and using creators and talent certainly to do that for us. We have the World Cup coming in the summer, so that will be another moment for us.

Why do you think you kind of have this ability to experiment and play [with new tech and creator initiatives]?

We’ve made really, really smart investments, and have an incredible, rich culture and IP that lends itself to experimentation. Look at the Today show. We have this incredible IP that people come in droves…to stand on the plaza. But we want to experiment, and we want to do new things and try new techniques and new things with social. We call the Today show the OG influencer; like, they’re with you in your living room every morning. So it’s taking different concepts with content that’s been around for a really long time and introducing it to a new audience…That’s why we do what we do, and why we take the chances sometimes. Some of them pay off really well, and some don’t, and that’s okay…And we have an incredible, incredible slew of advertisers that go on this journey with us every day, so a lot of it couldn’t do without them, either.

When you work with brand partners, do they gravitate to that experiential piece? Or is there IP that they really love or NBC initiatives that brands are like, “Oh, that really aligns with what we want?”

I used to think that being everywhere was the key, like you have to be everywhere for everyone and capture everything. It’s being much more purposeful, and I think really understanding what a brand needs. That’s really No.1…Sometimes an activation or being in an experiential place isn’t the right space for them, and we hope that we’ve built enough trust with them to say, let’s advise…It really depends on understanding what their challenges are, and then building that rapport with them and that trust for so long to say, like, “Trust us.” We know what we’re doing, but also we’re going to put you in the best light possible, and if you’re willing to take a chance, we’re willing to take a chance. SNL50 is a perfect example of that. That was the first time in 50 seasons that anyone was really allowed to touch that IP, and it was some of the best work I think we’ve ever done.

Do you have a favorite brand activation or partnership?

Probably my favorite one is Lisa Barlow’s relationship with Wendy’s and Bravo…If you think about Wendy’s and their space in the QSR or restaurant market, they’re always kind of fighting for space and airspace. So there was this natural synergy of Lisa talking about loving the food right in the show…and it just grew and blossomed into this incredible relationship.

After this Traitors season, I’m a big Lisa Rinna fan, so I’m in on the Bravo Lisas. Which reminds me, were you guys involved when Bowen and Matt did the Las Culturistas award show and they had the Lisa Rinna M&M as one of their nominees?

Yeah, that was an integration!…They were incredible to work with, and we have Las Culturistas [Culture Awards] coming back this May.

Do you think there’s space for new award shows, and if so, how do you bring them to life, both from an entertainment perspective and from a brand perspective?

I think the answer is yes. I think we never know what the next big thing is gonna be. If it’s born from fandom, and if you think about Bowen and Matt having this really successful podcast, that was born out of [fandom]. And we’re like, “Okay, let’s try this.” Let’s open it up to more people. And they were particular, in a good way, about [what brand partners were] within the show, how it was going to be represented, because they wanted to keep the authenticity of their brand…When you think about brand partnerships, it should never be disruptive unless a brand truly wants to be disruptive and there’s a real reason for that and there’s a way to do that. But I think when you’re thinking about culture, or you’re thinking about how you can insert yourself in, I think less is more, and you should really understand what you’re doing.