DISNEY REVAMPS ADVERTISING MULTI-YEAR DEALS

Disney Advertising Sales says sports TV advertising deal-making is slowly ramping up as a result of the return of sports to TV in the upcoming months. The company's upfront pitch consists of products that have the potential to make digital ad buying more popular. It’ll be the first upfront season where Walt Disney will include Hulu in its portfolio. "The sports marketplace has started to move,” says Rita Ferro, President of Disney Advertising Sales.“We are well on our way in terms of multi-year deals.” 

For the ABC Television Network, Ferro says the current third-quarter period witnessed cancellations of around 15% to 20% from TV marketers on deals made in the upfront market last summer. Although it was much less than anticipated, the cancellations were much more than the typical, historical 2% to 3% quarterly cancellation rates. Disney Media Networks also announced participation in Nielsen’s addressable TV beta program, where it can test and evaluate TV addressable ad capabilities. Nine programmers are now in the beta test, representing 75% of linear TV impressions in the U.S.

Disney revealed its upfront pitch during virtual presentations over the last few weeks, each one tailored to each agency that holds companies and their clients. The company’s Creative Works division oversees partnerships and integrations. The division will include Hulu’s creative shop, GreenHouse, which is run by Scott Donation. The company also announced that Disney joined Nielsen’s addressable TV platform, which helps brands manage their addressable inventory and campaigns and measure results. The company is dedicating time to finding a solution to the problem of viewers seeing the same ads over and over again. The conglomerate is working on its new ad product, Disney Hulu XP, which will allow marketers to purchase at one price and drive their ad to run anywhere across Disney’s entire digital portfolio. These deals will be guaranteed on completed views, as well as aunified programmatic approach that allows the use of client audience data for targeting and the ability to manage and measure brand frequency across its entire digital portfolio. The goal is to fill the slate with programmatic inventory and integrating the back-end tech stack.

Despite Hulu’s attempt to curb frequency over the last year, the problem is still present as marketers buy the platform through several places, buying directly from Hulu through networks whose content airs on programming platforms. The service has spent the last few years experimenting with various ad formats that look to reduce commercial clutter and deliver brand messages when consumers are most open to receiving them. Over the past year, Hulu introduced its pause ad, which plays after a viewer pauses the content, and binge ad formats, which are served when the viewer is watching multiple episodes of a program in one sitting. Ferro says there is a team dedicated to seeing how Disney can apply these formats and new ones to the entire portfolio. Hulu will announce additional ad formats at its NewFront event on 22nd June, according to Ferro. “Hulu has really driven innovation in that space; even announcements of new OTT products have announced using those formats,” Ferro said in regards to the adoption of the pause ad in NBCUniveral’s streaming platform Peacock. “Some holding companies had a significant buy with us and a significant buy with Hulu. Now we can manage the number of ads and number of times an ad is seen and manage across brands and campaigns."

Some of these sports deals were for college football on its ABC and ESPN networks. Ferro did not disclose specific details other than “a lot of multi-year deals were up for renewal this year, and those have all now, for the most part, except for two closed.” For many marketers there is a push to get deals done early, she says, because of special sponsored segments that marketers desire, such as a half-time show, the pre-game show, play of the game segments, and other areas. Sports leagues/franchises are reportedly getting close to re-starting, possibly next month. The NHL announced its return in the next few months. The NBA is looking to resume starting 31st July and the NFL  also announced its regular fall schedule.