Press Release

FreeWheel Hosts Its First NOWFRONT

March 18, 2019

FreeWheel hosted its first NOWFRONT in New York City. Here’s a recap of the press coverage surrounding the event.

Comcast’s FreeWheel to Host Its First Upfront Event
AdAge, by Jeanine Poggi

Comcast’s FreeWheel will make its first upfront pitch to advertisers next week as it looks to build more awareness for its media business and position itself as a leader in the much-ballyhooed advanced TV space. This comes as more media companies talk up their ability to granularly target TV audiences at scale and prove that commercials drive business outcomes.
Comcast’s FreeWheel Media is Bringing the “Now” to the Upfronts
MediaVillage, by Kathy Newberger

Perfect products and tools are always just around the corner.  Hours are invested absorbing company presentations, looking for tools that will help clients — clients with problems that are immediate and need solving today.  And yet agency and brand executives find themselves running in slow motion towards a media nirvana — perfect efficiency, transparency, scale and audience-based targeting — that always seems to be available next year or quarter. That’s why Brian Wallach, Senior Vice President of Comcast’s FreeWheel Media, says that the event his company is hosting for around 150 key industry executives is called the NowFront.
FreeWheel Making Moves On The Buy Side With First Upfront Event
AdExchanger, by James Hercher

FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned video ad tech company, hosted its first television upfront on Wednesday and is mounting a campaign to expand its buy-side business. The marketer outreach centers on new attribution features and the launch of FreeWheel Media, which formalizes its buy-side accounts and ad-serving business into a cohesive offering, CRO Brian Wallach told AdExchanger.

FreeWheel Unveils Media Unit At Upfront, Inks Vizio Deal
MediaPost, by Alex Weprin

FreeWheel, the Comcast-Owned advertising technology company, pitched a new “FreeWheel Media” unit to marketers and others on the buy side of the media business at its first upfront presentation Wednesday morning. At the event, which the company called a “NowFront,” it announced a deal with Vizio to incorporate data into its platform from more than 10 million smart TVs produced by the TV set maker.
FreeWheel Media Offers Unified Solution for TV and OTT Ad Buying
Streaming Media
, by Troy Dreier

Video monetization company FreeWheel formally announced a new division today at its FreeWheel NowFront event in New York City. Called FreeWheel Media, it’s there to connect ad buyers and ad sellers, helping media buyers plan unified video campaigns across TV and over-the-top (OTT) platforms.


FreeWheel NOWFRONT Event Launches FreeWheel Media, Showcases Deals With Data Plus Math, Inscape And Adobe
Beet.TV
Comcast’s FreeWheel has new partnerships with Data Plus Math, Vizio’s Inscape data unit and Adobe to augment its attribution, consumer insights and programmatic offerings. In this interview with Beet.TV, FreeWheel Media’s Brian Wallach explains the three deals announced at the FreeWheel NOWFRONT event in Manhattan this week.
FreeWheel’s First Upfront Unveils FreeWheel Media 
Cablefax, by Mollie Cahillane

Comcast is leaning into its advertising business with the first FreeWheel upfront, titled “NowFront.” The pitch to advertisers is an attempt to build more awareness for its media business and reassert itself as a leader in advanced TV tech. “For the last several years, we’ve also been in the media sales business, as a complement to what we do on the other side of the ecosystem. This is an area that we, for a long time, have cared about and have created a lot of firsts,” Comcast Advertising pres Marcien Jenckes said at Wednesday’s upfront presentation in NYC. “As the industry establishes itself, we were one of the first companies that helped unify audiences across platforms. We were one of the first companies that unlocked set-top-boxes across the country, we were one of the first to create addressable TV.”

Comcast’s FreeWheel teams with smart TV data company Inscape, rebrands media sales
FierceVideoby Ben Munson

Comcast’s ad tech division FreeWheel is partnering with Inscape, a smart TV data company owned by Vizio, to gain access to the company’s more than 10 million smart TVs in the U.S. Per the terms of the deal, FreeWheel can use Inscape’s opt-in smart TV viewership data (which uses automated content recognition technology) for modeling representativeness for demographic and consumer audience segments used for selling national TV advertising. That model will cover U.S. TV viewing data in all 210 DMAs, for all major cable, satellite and telco pay TV distributors, and over-the-air TV households.

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