NBC Universal has quantified the impact of cross-platform advertising. The network measured audience recall during the Beijing Olympics and found that brand recall increased more than 30 percent when ads ran on TV and the Internet, rather than television alone. The figure is included in a study the network is providing for top ad executives, according to Reuters. Recall of subject matter increased 41 percent in the same type of cross-platform environment. The results also indicated that more than half of Web surfers visiting Olympics-related sites simultaneously watched TV. The study also demonstrated that people use the platforms differently. People watched events on television and looked up athlete bios on the Web, for example. NBC sold around $1 billion worth of advertising during the Summer Games, during which it instituted cross-platform measuring that will continue to be used for regular programming. The network also holds the rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games in 2012 and the London Summer Games.
