Advertising on Disney Streaming Gets Simpler With Google, The Trade Desk Deals

Right after rolling out Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on Disney+, Disney is starting a new, addressable advertising era of its own.

Top line

Today, Disney announced that it’s creating a simpler, more effective way for advertisers to access its streaming inventory, partnering with buying platforms Google’s Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk to expand its programmatic tool, Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX).

With the expansion, DRAX Direct, Disney looks to deliver a new level of automation to marketers, unifying access to streaming inventory across Hulu and Disney+ for companies of any size.

Between the lines

According to the company, the launch of DRAX Direct helps Disney unlock incremental demand by building a direct path to the buy side, resulting in a better overall experience for brands.

“Disney’s goal is to empower advertisers to transact with the freedom and flexibility that best suits their business needs,” Jamie Power, senior vice president, addressable sales, Disney Advertising, said in a statement. “Years ago, we committed to a vision and strategy of delivering 50% of our advertising in an addressable and automated way. Owning our own technology stack allows us to build a direct path between our premium inventory and the leading media buying platforms in the industry, simplifying the way ads are bought and sold on Disney, while delivering greater effectiveness for our clients.”  

Ultimately, the offering looks to give advertisers more control and flexibility, bringing Disney’s proprietary tech stack together with two large buy-side technology platforms and streamlining the approach to addressable buying across the company’s portfolio.

“For over a decade, Google and Disney have collaborated on industry-leading ad innovations that drive results for customers. We are excited to expand on this relationship to bring Display & Video 360 demand to DRAX, providing our advertisers with a new way to directly purchase Disney’s high-quality connected TV inventory and reach their audience with privacy-forward solutions,” Stephen Yap, managing director Americas, Google Marketing Platform, said in a statement.

Additionally, Disney explained that a custom integration between DRAX and The Trade Desk’s OpenPath technology “reinforces growing demand from advertisers to have direct access to more addressable premium content with better precision and transparency.”

“Expanding our partnership with Disney Advertising underscores a shared vision to maximize the value of relevant advertising, especially at a moment when the industry needs it the most,” Will Doherty, vp, inventory development, The Trade Desk, said in a statement. “We set up the building blocks when we forged our collaboration to create a new identity fabric for the open internet through Unified ID 2.0 interoperability with Disney’s Audience Graph.”

Bottom line

The announcement showcases the importance of addressable and streaming ahead of this year’s upfront.

Addressable across sports and entertainment helped drive demand for Disney’s upfront inventory in 2023, and the DRAX expansion further bolsters that offering.

Additionally, more than 40% of the total 2023 and 2024 upfront dollars committed to Disney last year went toward streaming and digital, with Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu leading the way.