ThinkFest Recap: Comcast on Analyzing Viewing Data to Offer Commercials Just for You

Sam Schwartz on "unicorns," self-driving cars, the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center and the future of advertising.

Sam Schwartz at ThinkFest.

Sam Schwartz at ThinkFest.

ThinkFest is streaming live all day. Watch ThinkFest here.

Approximately 600 households in Philadelphia tell the Neilson ratings folks what we’re watching on traditional cable TV. That sure seems less scientific than the digital video landscape which allows for targeted advertisements aimed at people based exactly on what content they’re consuming.

Now Comcast is aiming to take a more personalized approach to its own advertising process, according to Sam Schwartz, chief business development officer at Comcast who spoke at ThinkFest 2015. In fact, he said we’re nearing the day when two next-door neighbors watching the same TV show will get different ads during a commercial break.

“With the X1 operating system, we have an incredible power to collect data and make it measurable,” he said, noting several times during his talk that data collection is done in a “privacy-protected way.”

He also said: “The more information you know about your customer, the better products you can build for that customer. And you can monetize better.”

The company is also wrestling with changes in how people consume video content. Five years ago, 5 percent of all video consumed was online, said Schwartz. Now that number is 29 percent.

He also spoke on a number of other topics:

On innovation and unicorns: “Markets are investing more money than ever to power innovation. There’s a new term called a unicorn — defined as a company that has raised money at more than a $1 billion valuation that is still private. In the last three years alone, there have been 170 companies in this category. Money is basically free. We now have foreign entities coming in as well as angels. It’s just an environment where we’re lowering the barriers of entry and fueling innovation.”

On the soon-to-come Comcast Innovation and Technology Center: “It’s designed to be a different kind of place — a vertical campus. Our first decision was to have no closed offices. You can’t hide behind the door. Even bosses have to be sitting with everyone else. Plus, the entire building has raised floors, so we can reorganize the entire place without removing walls. It just takes one day to create new areas.”

On self-driving cars:

“Americans spend 72 billion hours per year behind the wheel driving. If we go self-driving, that’s 72 billion hours of free time that people could use.”