Twitter Announces New, Exclusive Video Content Partnerships at NewFronts 2022

Twitter has announced a new slate of premium video content deals at its NewFronts 2022 presentation, including partnerships with E! News, Conde Nast, the WNBA and more.

Twitter’s premium video content offers opportunities for advertisers to reach engaged audiences around these programs and events. And while Twitter has never quite been able to nail its efforts to integrate live video content and real-time tweet discussion, the new programming could provide new inspiration for your Twitter approach, based on related discussion and interaction around each.

First off, Twitter’s announced an extension of its deal with Conde Nast, which will provide opportunities for brands to sponsor Twitter streams of events like Vogue’s Red Carpet at the Met Gala, the Vanity Fair Oscar Party Red Carpet and the Pitchfork Music Festival, via Twitter’s Amplify ad offering.

Twitter’s also launching a new, made-for-Twitter, live-stream show with E! News called “While You Were Streaming”, which will cover all the biggest entertainment news in the TV universe.

Twitter’s the home of real-time discussion for many, and these deals will be a strong lure for advertisers looking to get in on the latest discussion trends as they happen.

Cultural leaders REVOLT and ESSENCE will also bring new live content to the platform via dedicated programming and coverage, while on the sports front, Twitter has also announced a new, multi-year partnership with the WNBA, which will see exclusive WNBA content streamed to the app.

As per Twitter:

“The 2022 season marks the sixth year of the partnership and will include a slate of 12 live games. For the first time ever, the WNBA will also regularly host Spaces throughout the season, as well as during WNBA tentpole events and the offseason. Amongst other content elements like polls, player interviews and moments, new content franchises will give fans closer access to the league and broader WNBA community.”

The inclusion of Spaces is interesting – it’s still not clear whether Spaces is truly catching on with Twitter users, nor whether it will become a more significant offering. Exclusives like this will definitely help, and if Twitter can arrange more celebrity broadcasts, that will help to boost awareness of Spaces more broadly, and give it the best chance for success.

Twitter’s also announced a new partnership with NBCUniversal, which will see the platform become the first social partner to test an integration with iSpot, NBCU’s first cross-platform video certified measurement partner.

“The partnership aims to offer advertisers who purchase Amplify sponsorships from NBCUniversal additional insights to better understand the incremental audience generated from their Twitter media campaigns.” 

Finally, Twitter’s also launching a new program dedicated to providing real-time highlights of the biggest global events.

“The program will allow advertisers to promote and run pre-roll on live event pages featuring real-time highlights, helping Twitter’s passionate and engaged fans discover content in their timeline, as well as front and center in the Explore tab.”

Twitter’s hoping that these new partnerships and deals will help reassure advertisers that they will be able to reach dedicated engaged audiences in the app, even amid incoming changes under new owner Elon Musk.

Though Twitter itself doesn’t know if that’s true. Musk has publicly stated that he doesn’t think Twitter should run ads at all, so it seems like there will be a level of disruption for advertisers, at the least, over the coming months.

But no one knows for sure what’s coming next, and right now, Twitter is working under the assumption that it will be able to run its regular ad programs moving forward, with these new partnerships providing more avenues for brands to reach users in line with these events.