It’s been a busy year for Disney Advertising and the company’s streaming platforms.
In 2024, Disney saw 40% of its total upfront dollars earmarked for streaming and digital offerings, and it has taken steps throughout the year to bolster that side of the business, including now working with nearly 40 demand-side platforms, making investments in multicultural programming and DEI-centric (diversity, equity, and inclusion) branded content, and going through a major reorganization to bring Disney video ad inventory to more midmarket advertisers.
“We came out of what was a very tough advertising year the year before, with growth across most—if not all—of our platforms in terms of the number of advertisers we’re working with and the types of opportunities we’re creating,” Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising, told ADWEEK.
Speaking with ADWEEK, Ferro previewed Disney’s upcoming Tech and Data Showcase, explained what’s ahead for Disney+’s ad tier, and addressed Disney CEO Bob Iger’s comments following a recent “hot mic” moment.
In Disney’s latest earnings call, Iger said around 60% of all new Disney+ subscribers are going to the ad-supported tier. However, the CEO was later heard questioning whether he was supposed to share those statistics. Ferro is now bringing some clarity to the situation.
ADWEEK: Rita, looking back on 2024, what were some of the highlights for Disney Advertising? What were the priorities?
We’ve spent a lot of time driving our automation business and how we think about the right partners to drive the scale and growth of our programmatic business, and obviously building out and continuing to evolve our self-service platform. We spent a lot of time making our data interoperable with the marketplace because more and more marketers want to come in and buy very specific, targeted media around audience segments. And so we wanted to make sure that, regardless of what platform they’re using or how they come in, we can drive that opportunity to plan, buy, and measure every one of their campaigns across our portfolio. That’s important.
We continue to make investments around multicultural programming and commitments with marketers, investing in their core consumers—audiences that drive growth, consumption of their brands, and are fans of their brands.