Disney’s Rita Ferro Is Ready for an ‘Intimate’ Upfront

With weeks to go until the upfront officially kicks off, Disney has a plan in place.

The company’s first in-person upfront in three years took place at Basketball City in New York in 2022, but this year, Disney is headed to a new location at the North Javits Center.

According to ad sales chief Rita Ferro, the move had to do with space.

“It didn’t feel as intimate from an audience perspective, so we knew we wanted a venue that felt more inclusive that, regardless of where you were, you felt part of the show,” Ferro said, speaking Tuesday at Adweek’s Convergent TV Summit.

Last year was the first time Disney had integrated Hulu on stage, as well as Disney+. And the audience can expect the company to showcase the platforms once again in the new space.

“Our streaming platforms are far and away the biggest share of our marketplace, especially in the advertising space, so we wanted to make sure that our presentation will reflect that,” Ferro explained.

Approaching the upfront, measurement is top of mind for Ferro and her team. This year, the company will look to work across several different options.

Though Disney’s currency will be Nielsen, it will also transact through iSpot and VideoAmp.

“The reason we have multiple is not one partner, not one vendor, is working across the market, and they all don’t do exactly the same thing, and we have to scale,” said Ferro.

This year’s upfront will be the first since CEO Bob Iger returned, which Ferro believes is a boon for the company.

“He’s super passionate about this company,” Ferro said. “This is a company that is foundationally a creative and storytelling company, and there’s no question that what he has put together in how we’re focused on that is the secret sauce for us.”

Ferro believes that Iger’s vision for the company is also a benefit for brand partners since being close to the storytellers allows for easier creation of custom solutions.

Those solutions are already activated across linear and sports and are now starting to be integrated into streaming, with Ferro specifically pointing to The Bear on Hulu.

The ad sales chief noted the ability to bring in new tech into advertising and move with speed is essential.

“It’s powerful and resonating with our brand partners,” Ferro said. “Having it all in one place at a global scale, that’s how we’ve been going to market from an advertising perspective.”

Basically Disney+

A week after Iger returned to Disney, the company rolled out its ad-supported offering, Disney+ Basic.

In the months since launch, Ferro and her team have discovered that Disney+’s audience is far broader than initially expected and have experimented with ad breaks and discoverability.

“Disney+ is much more movie-centric than television content as it is on Hulu, so we assumed we were going to have more consumption of movies on the platform. We had to play with different ad breaks for different kinds of content,” said Ferro.

And regardless of the current soft ad market, Ferro is optimistic.

“We’re now really in the scatter marketplace looking how to monetize the year, but also planning for the upfront in what is a very interesting marketplace,” said Ferro.