Disney has announced a major expansion of its advertising capabilities in Australia and New Zealand, bringing new audience targeting, interactive and shoppable ad formats, AI-powered creative tools and live sport under its growing Disney+ with Ads proposition.
The announcements were made at The Walt Disney Company ANZ’s Upfront in Melbourne on Thursday, where hundreds of media buyers were shown the next wave of advertising technology heading to Disney+ just five months after the streamer launched its $9.99 Standard with Ads tier locally.
Among the biggest developments was the rollout of Disney Audience Graph and Disney Select, giving advertisers greater audience insight and targeting capabilities, alongside interactive formats including Ad Selector and Video+.
On top of that, Disney also announced its upcoming Disney Ad Creative Studio, which will use AI to help advertisers plan and produce creative assets at scale, while ESPN’s live sport offering continues to bring NFL, NBA, NBL and other high-attention sporting moments into the Disney+ advertising proposition.
‘We’re Going To Catch Up Very Quickly’
B&T sat down with Disney Advertising ANZ director Nik Weber to unpack what the new capabilities actually mean for advertisers.
A major part of that acceleration is Disney Audience Graph, which brings together signals across Disney’s platforms, alongside Disney Select, which will turn those insights into audience segments for advertisers.
Weber said the new technology would allow brands to combine Disney’s powerful content environments with more targeted advertising.
“The audience graph is going to allow us to really hone in on the exact audience that our advertisers want to reach,” he said.
“We’ve got a real strong breadth of content on the platform, and the ability to overlay individual targeting techniques with the content targeting that’s available on the platform is a really powerful tool.”
That broader targeting proposition has become increasingly important as Disney+ establishes a much wider audience than Disney’s previous advertising offering through ESPN.
“This is a full four-quadrant proposition,” Weber said. “With that comes the responsibility that you need to be able to reach more granular audiences, and advertisers want the ability to be able to do that and to compete with the other platforms.”
And Disney’s audience data is already producing some interesting results.
Weber said nearly 60 per cent of viewing hours were coming from 18- to 39-year-olds, while almost two-thirds of content consumed on Disney+ was Hulu programming.
He said titles including The Kardashians and The Bear have helped create a more balanced audience from a gender perspective, too.
“The audience is certainly younger than we anticipated,” Weber told B&T. “It’s finally given us a nice balance of demographics from a gender standpoint as well.”
However, Weber stressed Disney was only at the beginning of its targeting journey.
“We are still very much in chapter one of the rollout at the moment,” he said, with more advanced capabilities expected over the next six to 12 months.”
Disney also used the Upfront to announce new interactive advertising formats designed specifically for streaming.
Ad Selector will allow viewers to choose which creative they see before content begins, while Video+ will allow advertisers to send offers directly to a viewer’s phone without interrupting the viewing experience.
Weber said the formats reflected the lessons Disney had learned through Hulu.
“Hulu was the absolute pioneer in streaming advertising,” he said. “They did not try and create ad breaks and ad formats that worked for broadcast or free-to-air television.
“They created ad formats that worked for streaming, that empowered the audience to see the ads that they wanted to see and that were targeted to the right people.”
Disney has already seen strong results internationally from the formats across attention, purchase intention and other full-funnel metrics.
“What we’re trying to enable for our advertisers is ensuring that those metrics are on the climb through those formats,” Weber said.
“We’re going to see significantly improved results for campaigns by applying additional formats.”
‘Something I don’t think anyone else can offer’
For Weber, however, the bigger mission is making Disney’s premium content commercially meaningful for advertisers.
“We have world-class quality content, and we need to be able to go out and prove that that makes a difference now,” he said. “It’s not enough to tell advertisers that we have incredible, world-class content. It needs to mean something to them when they’re buying ads with us.”
Disney is also continuing to develop its measurement proposition, including new brand effectiveness studies and its involvement in the Video Futures Collective.
“We are constantly searching for the best ways to demonstrate return on our platform,” Weber said. “We are very much of the persuasion that we want to demonstrate to advertisers the platform is effective for them.”
Asked what Disney’s new proposition offers that competitors cannot, Weber pointed to the combination of sport, entertainment, culture and advertising technology.
“The point of difference for us is the intersection of sport and entertainment, sport, entertainment and culture all in one place,” he said. “And the quality of the content on our platforms, the brand-safe nature of it, and then the world-class advertising technology, all in the same place, is something that I don’t think anyone else can offer.”
So, Will Advertisers Actually Spend?
Of course, every Upfront can unveil new technology, shiny formats and impressive audience numbers. The bigger question is whether advertisers will actually put their money behind them.
Based on the agency reaction at Disney’s Melbourne event, the early answer appears to be yes.
Ante Pejic, Mindshare’s head of investment Melbourne, said Disney had entered the ad-supported streaming market strategically and was now well positioned to accelerate.
“I think they’re growing at the speed that they should,” Pejic told B&T. “We’ve seen other players enter the market having to re-look at what their ad experience is like and how to go to market, but I think they’re doing it at the right pace.”
Pejic said Disney had avoided trying to do too much at once.
“They haven’t launched too big or too small. They’ve been quite strategic in how they’ve entered the market.”
When B&T asked whether the new capabilities would encourage advertisers to spend more with Disney+, Pejic was all for it.
“I think they’re really primed to take the market by the scruff of the neck,” he said. “I think they’ve got the right mix of ad capabilities, the growing scale, and how to appear in these moments and alongside these content verticals.
“They’ve got the perfect mix. They’ve got family-driven content via Disney, they’ve got sport with ESPN and a great big back catalogue in Hulu.
“They’re in a real prime position to take the market head-on.”
Shoppable Streaming ‘Definitely Something Advertisers Want’
The interactive and shoppable formats were among the biggest talking points for agencies at the event.
Pejic singled out Video+ and its ability to bring consumers closer to a transaction.
“I think the more things become shoppable, and the ways that we can get into the point of sale quicker, the better,” he said.
“Anything that brings the brand closer to that checkout point is definitely something that advertisers would like to see.”
And WPP Media’s head of supply James Betlehem agreed.
“Shoppable, commerce, all that sort of stuff is really becoming a thing and has been a thing for the past year and it’s started to grow,” Betlehem told B&T.
“Anything shoppable, anything to do with commerce and retail, having something like that in your suite is definitely a strong advantage.
“I think buyers are really going in that direction now.”
Betlehem was also excited by Disney’s move towards new ad formats such as pause ads.
“Pause ads is definitely something that we’re hearing a lot from clients about and what they want,” he said.
“I think it’s a very powerful format within a digital buy.
“Seeing pause ads up there is music to my ears.”
Was Disney’s Most Exciting Opportunity ‘Undercooked’?
Not everyone thought Disney had given equal attention to all of its biggest opportunities.
Half Dome founder Joe Frazer said one of the most exciting parts of the presentation was also one that Disney could have spent more time explaining.
That was the potential for brands to creatively align with Disney’s world-famous content and franchises.
“I thought that was maybe slightly undercooked, but it sounded like they’ve got stuff in the works, which is cool,” Frazer told B&T.
“The whole time they were talking about their content – that was awesome. I think the strength they bring is in that content and the alignment with that.”
Frazer said advertisers were increasingly looking beyond the traditional 15- and 30-second ad break.
“We’re seeing more and more demand for formats that allow brands to show up in non-traditional ways,” he said.
“Instead of a 15- or 30-second ad break, they’re definitely looking to see how they can either integrate with content more or at least bring more engaging experiences through.”
Frazer also commented on the potential for brands to align with Disney’s content.
“Anyone who can align with Disney content, it’s like, cool, I’ll fall over myself, how much money do you want?” he said.
“I would have tripled down on that because it sounded very cool.”
For Frazer, that content proposition may ultimately be more differentiated than some of Disney’s new advertising technology.
“A lot of the other capability around data and targeting and all the rest of it, a lot of that’s sort of table stakes these days,” he said.
“It’s good to have, but I don’t think it’s the key reason that you’d go to Disney over someone else.”
Disney’s Content Could Be The Real Reason Advertisers Buy
Frazer said the streaming market had moved away from being purely focused on reach and frequency.
“I reckon the sell two years ago was very reach-and-frequency focused from all of the platforms,” he said.
“With a fair bit of fragmentation that’s happened, a lot of the advertisers we speak to are focused on impact over reach.”
He said Disney had done a strong job of demonstrating how its content and new formats could deliver that impact.
“So I do think that it’s pretty compelling,” he said.
Frazer also believes Disney’s live sport offering could be a major commercial opportunity.
“I think live sport is so underdone,” he said.
“It’s priced wrong. It’s priced the same as the rest of the entertainment content, and I think them bringing it together and it remaining priced competitively compared to other streaming formats means that it’s an undervalued asset. Full stop.”
Disney+ now brings together entertainment and sport through ESPN, including NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, alongside local competitions including the NBL and WNBL.
“I just think more money should be spent in live sport, 100 per cent, and premium content, 100 per cent,” Frazer said. “I think they’ve got a massive opportunity to differentiate on impact.”
Premium Content & Sport Under One Buy Is ‘Compelling’
Nick Berry, head of media and digital marketing at Endeavour Group, said the combination of premium entertainment and live sport was particularly compelling for advertisers.
Endeavour Group, through Dan Murphy’s and BWS, has already been a major supporter of Disney and ESPN, with the business sponsoring the NFL broadcast across Disney+.
“Having premium content along with live sport content together under one banner is certainly a compelling proposition,” Berry told B&T.
He applauded Disney’s new creative capabilities and the potential to move beyond traditional advertising.
“The ability for an advertiser to work with Disney to create different variations of their creative already, but also to be able to be inserted inside content is amazing,” he said.
“It’s another way to connect with consumers outside of the standard ad block.”
