Peacock Is Now Slapping Ads on Your Profile Screen Before You Even Hit Play

Before you even pick who’s watching, Peacock wants brands to say hello.

According to The Verge, starting next year, Peacock will introduce a new ad format that appears on the “Who’s watching?” profile selection screen, placing advertising front and center the moment users open the app. Instead of a neutral landing page, viewers will be met with a large promotional image sitting next to their profile icons.

During a recent press briefing, NBCUniversal previewed how these new placements, called “arrival ads,” will appear. In one mockup, user profiles are stacked vertically along the left side of the screen while a Capital One ad fills nearly the entire display. Another example swaps the bank branding for a splashy image promoting the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The idea is simple: Peacock is using previously empty space to make a bold advertising statement.

According to NBCUniversal spokesperson Andrew Bilbao, Peacock’s Premium Plus subscribers will not see these ads. In a press release, the company described the format as “a first-of-its-kind, bold presence on a user’s profile page that allow brands to own the first impression as soon as viewers enter the platform.”

The profile screen ads are just one part of Peacock’s expanding ad strategy. The service also announced plans to add ads to the vertical video feed of short clips within its mobile apps. This builds on Peacock’s existing ad formats, which already include full-screen ads that appear when users pause a show.

Peacock has also experimented with what it calls a “binge” ad. After a viewer watches two episodes of the same series in a row, a sponsored message appears promising that the next episode will be ad-free. Together, these updates show Peacock continuing to explore new ways to integrate advertising throughout the viewing experience.