One reason that Disney is making its identifier more widely available now is that advertisers have changed how they buy streaming ads. Clients traditionally buy directly from Disney ad sales, but they’re now increasingly buying ads in an online auction.
“We’re starting to see growth in that biddable channel—double-digit growth, quarter over quarter, and we want to enable the least amount of friction possible in order to continue to drive that growth,” Ferro said.
Over the past three years, as Disney has launched a clean room and made it easier to access its first-party data, use of that data has seen triple-digit growth, said Dana McGraw, Disney’s SVP of data and measurement science.
The ad revenue associated with Disney’s first-party data is already in the billions, McGraw said.
If Disney’s bet pays off and more advertisers are encouraged to spend, the company anticipates it will generate additional billions.