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Mark Marshall’s phone was ringing off the hook following NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation on Monday. The credit—or, if you prefer, blame—for that goes to Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who revealed the NBCU ad chief’s digits live onstage to an audience of hundreds in Radio City Music Hall.
“I got so many calls, and most of them were like, ‘Is this really your number?'” Marshall tells ADWEEK with a laugh. “I also got funny texts like, ‘Hey, Mark, I just got your number from Jimmy. You having a good day today?'” (For the record, ADWEEK test-called Marshall’s number as well, but we didn’t leave a message.)
Fortunately for Fallon, Marshall isn’t peeved about his overflowing voicemail: “Jimmy texted me afterwards and said, ‘I hope your phone is blowing up!'” Marshall recalls. “And I told him: ‘Payback could be tough, Jimmy. A lot more people would like your number than mine.'”
In a lively upfront postmortem interview, the global advertising and partnerships chairman previewed NBCU’s big sports year (which include the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in the same month), plans for NBC’s centennial celebration, and how an acrophobic like himself ended up in the rafters of Radio City preparing to make his descent in a Wickedly-cool bubble.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
ADWEEK: First things first—was it your pitch to borrow Ariana Grande’s Wicked bubble for your grand entrance?
Marshall: Not my pitch! My pitch is typically being on the ground. [Laughs] I told the team, “Why don’t we do an opening like Billy Crystal running through the Oscars, and we’ll use greenscreens?” But they decided, “Well, he’s scared of heights—let’s see how we can freak him out.”
Did you enjoy the experience in the end?
You know what? It was fun for the impact of it, and the team does such a great job of making the show a great show. But I really don’t like heights. I’d only rehearsed it once over the weekend when all the lights were out in Radio City. Doing it with the lights on, you realize real quickly how high you really are! So I was excited to feel it starting to descend.
Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at your entrance during the Disney upfront. Were you given a heads-up?
I did not get a heads up, but I certainly got a ton of texts! The first one was a picture of me with the Disney logo under it, and I was like, “I don’t know what this is.” Then I started getting texts about what Jimmy said. It was a surprise and all in good fun. I assumed I would get plenty of teasing—I didn’t necessarily think it would come from the Disney upfront stage. [Laughs]
Speaking of teasing, Seth MacFarlane tweaked NBCU during his opening musical number, “NBCU Has the S**t You’re After.” Did you get a chance to hear those jokes before the show?
Yeah, we had a preview of it. Most of the people he teased there had a heads-up of what was coming. Seth is unbelievably talented and has done projects with virtually every different media company, so he has real insights into the business. And the talent that man has: He can do voices; he can sing; he can dance. It’s pretty impressive. He should have been on TV in the 1950s—he would have had a Texaco-sponsored primetime variety show!
Turning to the presentation itself, there was a heavy emphasis on sports. NBC has the Super Bowl next year—what demand are you seeing around the Big Game after its record-setting 2025?
The Super Bowl is a standout property every single year, and we’ve had people who have been talking to us starting from the fourth quarter of last year’s game. The demand is strong for that as well as for the Winter Olympics. A lot of the discussions we’ve had with marketers who are going to be in both events is how they use them together to extend their message.
So you’re talking with advertisers about how to link the two since they’re airing back-to-back in February.
Exactly. Normally, with the Super Bowl, you have about half of the advertisers tease their campaigns, while the other half premiere them during the show. We’ll be able to start the lead-in to both events the week of Feb. 2; the Opening Ceremony for the Winter Games is on Friday, Feb. 6, and then the games start on Saturday, and on Sunday, you’ll have the Super Bowl. So we’re having advertisers think about how to build the narrative into the game and then extend the message and sequential storytelling to fill 14 days of the Olympics afterwards.
Peacock had a big role in the Summer Olympics last year and did some innovative things. Will you be following the same streaming playbook for the Winter Games?
We’re going to follow the same strategy, because it was successful. There are some great storylines around athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn. The nice part about these Games is they’re in the same time zone as the Summer Games. Last year, fans loved being able to watch events live during the day and then dig into deeper storytelling around the athletes themselves at night.
Gotta ask: Will there be more AI Al Michaels?
We loved AI Al Michaels. We have not announced what will happen next yet. But we did announce our AI voice for the NBA on NBC—Jim Fagan. As soon as you hear that voice, you’re like, “Oh, these are the big moments.”
One of the Peacock features for the NBA has a fantasy sports-style element. It doesn’t appear to currently allow for betting, but is that an area you’re open to exploring?
Those features are brand new, so we’re talking to everyone about it—including the NBA—and figuring out exactly how we want these things to come to life. But there are elements that you could look at and say that there could be natural ties to certain categories. We really haven’t gotten all the way to that point yet.
The other big headline out of the NBA portion of the upfront is Michael Jordan’s involvement. How did that come about?
He has been part of our extended family for a long time. The thing is, you don’t often get to hear Michael talk about his view of the game, and I think that’s what fans are going to love. A lot of younger fans who may know him from the Air Jordan sneakers and from highlight clips, but now they’re actually going to hear what he thinks of today’s game and players like Anthony Edwards and others who are compared to him. I think it’s going to be a cool experience, and as a Chicago guy, it’s heaven for me.
Can you say anything more about the centennial special celebrating NBC’s 100 years? Will it really be six hours long like Tina Fey warned?
It will not be six hours. [Laughs] And it won’t be all about that one special. We’re going to roll out opportunities throughout the year, highlighting different elements. For example, the comedies that have existed over NBC’s career are unparalleled—how do we reintroduce those in a different way? My daughter’s favorite show is 30 Rock; she was six when it went off the air, but it has a whole new life because of Peacock. So there are these cool combinations for how you bring different generations together across Peacock and all our linear properties. It’ll pay off in that special, but there will be a lot of lead-up to that, as you saw with SNL 50.
Even though it’s a spin-off company, Versant seems to still be very much in the NBCU portfolio. Can advertisers expect any changes once the company is fully up and running?
For our marketers and for everyone who works on our sales team, it doesn’t change at all. When we launched Versant, we never contemplated spinning off networks. The whole concept was: How do you find audiences across different networks? There are some great brands that are part of Versant, so it’s great that we don’t lose that reach and those brands. And for marketers, it’s great because they want to be able to find their audiences without having a whole other sales organization they have to transact with. So our marketers will feel no difference, and inside our walls, it’ll operate as it does today.
How do you feel about the reaction to the name?
It comes with the territory when you’re trying to choose a name. I thought Seth Meyers was very funny [during the upfront] when he joked about Roku and Tubi already being taken. It’s rare that someone comes up with a name for a new company and everyone says, “Wow, that’s really great!” And also, that’s really the B2B name—they’ll focus much more on the brands that live within there.
Buzzer question: Will NBCU return the upfronts next year?
Yes, 100%. I give Paramount credit for doing something different, but for us, this isn’t just about the advertisers—we also have all of our affiliates and our different station groups. During my first year here, we had the strikes, and some people were cancelling their upfront. But I got so many notes and texts from clients and agencies asking us not to cancel. It’s not just about them seeing the new shows—it’s about us sitting down with them. We think there’s value in that.
And it’s probably safe to say that you’ll be staying on the ground next time.
I assure you, I will not be in the rafters next year. [Laughs]
