The NBA season kicked off last week, and with the new season comes technology storylines and new innovations to follow. Fans can now add near-real-time video advertisements from Turner Sports and Google to the list.
During NBA Opening Night last Tuesday, Turner producers captured video content to create branded ads through the Google DoubleClick Bid Manager platform, an experiment Google has labeled “Project Instant.”
Turner Sports is the first network to deliver sports content via the new initiative, which relies on real-time footage for its advertising. The advertisements live on the NBA on TNT YouTube account along with other Turner social platforms.
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Advertising included TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ studio crew of Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal in addition to player warmups and fan shots inside Oracle Arena (Golden State Warriors) and Quicken Loans Arena (Cleveland Cavaliers).
The advertisements will not appear on traditional linear television but could appear on television when watching YouTube via smart televisions or an OTT device. Google previously experimented with the immediate advertising at Comic-Con this summer.