ViacomCBS' Upfront Highlights Combined Content Slate Instead of Individual Brands

Making its upfronts week debut as a combined company, ViacomCBS went light on details and heavy on its overall content slate as it closed out the annual marketing event Wednesday afternoon. Unlike most of the week's other presenters, ViacomCBS didn’t individually break out most of its linear and digital brands, aside from running through CBS’ fall lineup (announced earlier today) at the end of the presentation. The company used one of its most-well known series, Survivor—which returns this fall after a season-long hiatus due to the pandemic—to highlight the depth and breadth of its content and talent in a spoof celebrity edition of the show, "Celebrity Casting Special." The segment lasted more than half of the relatively brief presentation, which was just 40 minutes long (an hour shorter than Disney's Tuesday afternoon event). “We're here today to make sure you have what it takes, the premium content of character, to to show the power of partnership and to build new alliances between ViacomCBS and our winning advertisers,” said host Jeff Probst. ViacomCBS stars—including James Corden, Norah O’Donnell, Queen Latifah, RuPaul and Trevor Noah—competed in a series of Survivor challenges designed to highlight the company's robust slate of programming, advertising solutions and reach. Genre groupings The presentation spotlighted the company’s content portfolio by genre instead of by brand, with sizzle reels showcasing drama, comedy, reality, kids/family, late night/daytime, specials/events, sports and news. Like Fox’s upfront before it, ViacomCBS also used spoof ads to demonstrate its offerings to marketers. The company touted its EyeQ Video solution in a faux pharmaceutical ad, telling marketers it’s one of the biggest premium video ad platforms in digital media, reaching 60 million monthly full-episode viewers (a point emphasized multiple times throughout the presentation). Fox Pitches Marketers on Its Wonderful World Without Paywalls ViacomCBS also touted its InView reporting platform in a satirical spot between Survivor segments that mimicked a car ad. The company said the platform allows for “new levels of transparency” and provides a holistic overview of campaign performance. Ad sales chief Jo Ann Ross, the only ViacomCBS executive to make an appearance during the presentation, declared all the celebrities winners on Survivor, but noted the “ultimate winner” is ViacomCBS’ clients. “Because we love and appreciate your business. And we're always here for you," she said. "Working together, we prove the power of partnership." Like other broadcasters, CBS’ fall lineup, announced earlier today, is all about franchises. Three of its most popular ones are getting new offshoots: NCIS: Hawai’i; FBI: International; and CSI: Vegas. However, the upfront did not include any trailers from the new shows, which made only brief cameos in the genre sizzle reels. Late Show host Stephen Colbert popped in to note that "advertisers are by far my favorite people to spend two and a half minutes with, six times an hour,” and talk up the company's ad offerings. “ViacomCBS is data-driven and results-oriented to provide highly effective ad solutions,” said Colbert. “Listen up, you want to target left-leaning tiny-Fedora-wearing ping-pong enthusiasts with a pension for crime procedurals and strawberry-lemonade popsicles, but who have that thing where cilantro tastes like soap? We can do that! We can do that, right? … I'm gonna say we can do that.”