NBCUniversal is building a new ad team to help marketers navigate Snap, Apple News, BuzzFeed and Vox

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• NBCU has allied itself with a number of digital media companies, ranging from Snap to BuzzFeed to Apple.
• Now the company is building out a specialized sale unit, NBCU Code, to help cater to advertisers looking to create unique programs via these different properties.
• The hope is to go after ad budgets that typically go to digital platforms, and cater to advertisers looking for big audiences on mobile devices.

Over the past few years NBCUniversal has either invested in, or formally partnered with, a slew of big name digital media brands, including Snap, Apple News, Vox Media and BuzzFeed.

Now the media giant is building out a new team aimed at helping its internal sales groups, as well as advertisers, get the most out of its close relationships with these digital players.

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NBCU is this month formally rolling out what it's calling NBCU Code, a group of 20-plus specialists who will focus on the company's digital partnerships. The team is being led by Executive Vice President, Digital Sales and Strategy Trevor Fellows, who joined NBCU in August from Dow Jones.

Fellows told Business Insider that as NBCU's portfolio has grown, it's become more crucial to have specialists who can help advertisers execute unique advertising campaigns that exploit the strengths of each of these platforms. While giant advertisers do come to the media company for massive, cross screen deals - like say for the upcoming Winter Olympics - that include ads on everything from linear TV to the web to social platforms, the majority do not.

So the idea with Code will be to cater to marketers looking to create custom ad campaigns with a few of NBCU's partners at a time. Besides Apple News, Vox, BuzzFeed and Snap, Code's purview includes the mobile ad company Kargo as well as NBCU and its partners' YouTube channels.

Fellows said the hope is that Code will tap into some ad budgets that might traditionally go to digital players. Advertisers are particularly looking for large audiences on mobile devices, which not many media companies outside of Facebook and Google can claim, he said.

Besides selling to the outside world, the Code team will also help NBCU's existing sales groups execute on bigger ad packages that include the likes of Snap, Apple, etc. - as each of these properties has different nuances, advertising best practices, and data capabilities.

"Some clients will need a great deal of attention and help working with these partners, and some will just need a little bit of support," he said. "We want to be nimble enough to do both. And we'll be able to create a common data thread when needed."

Fellows said that as many as 50 people inside NBCU could end up spending at least part of their time assisting on Code related deals.

He noted that Code won't be focused on just selling excess ad space across a network of partners. The idea is to focus on "content development," he said. "This is really the antithesis of just another ad network."