I also offered the example of what we did with GMC in True Detective, incorporating some of their vehicles into the series because there was the thematic alignment between GMC being suited for rough terrain and the filming location of the series.
Then the second half of the speech was about our advertising capabilities. The first year WBD existed, we didn’t have the bandwidth to do this. The two companies merged one month before the 2022 upfront. We had two different venues booked and had to figure out how to consolidate our programming and messaging. Then last year we had the strike. This year, we have had a team of data scientists working to gather data from all the touchpoints in the WBD ecosystem. We have theatrical, gaming, Bleacher Report, CNN and more, and we have been working on ways to knit all of that data together into one offering, which is One WBD.
This year marks the first year in which ad spend on streaming video will surpass ad spend on linear, and the WBD upfront seemed to reflect that. Many of its most anticipated series were living exclusively on Max.
I come from a time when broadcast and primetime ruled ad sales, and the cable networks held the upfront to showcase what was coming up. Today, there is far less of that. Most of the premiere shows are debuting on streaming, and it has become the new battleground. Things have changed, and marketers are saying that if they want to wrap themselves around big IP, they have to look to the streaming universe to find those cultural moments. Fortunately, between our theatricals and new original series, we have a hot hand right now.
You also spoke about some of the ways WBD is using AI when serving ads in Max.
Our new contextual understanding product is going to be a really big focus. Using AI, we are able to land ads in scenes of shows that provide inspiration. For instance, during a cooking segment on Food Network, a chef could be grilling a panini, and right after, we could run a spot for a dairy brand. Or. more ambitiously, think about a category like travel. With some upcoming series, such as the third season of White Lotus, Conan O’Brien Must Go or Searching For with Eva Longoria, we are showing beautiful locations that will put people in a mindset to book trips of their own.
In series like those, all of a sudden we have natural contextual alignment with categories like hotels, airlines, tourism boards and many others.
On the IP front, you mentioned that this screen-to-stream strategy can be a jumping-off point for larger sponsorships. Does that work backward into the archive?
Think about series like Dune, And Just Like That or even House of the Dragon. These series can all be sponsored when they debut on Max, but they also have related IP with extensive backlogs that people are still consuming for the first time. With Dune Prophecy, the new Dune series debuting this fall, we not only have the two recent Dune films, but we also have the IP to the 1980s film. Same with the Sex and the City and Game of Thrones franchises. Both have ongoing adaptations—a mix of film and television series—as well as a massive library of material that can also be advertised against. This allows brands to own share of mind across entire franchises that might be important to the demographic they are looking to reach.