Disney’s Rita Ferro Is Banking on Sports, Streaming, Tech (Upfronts)

Heading into the upfront, the advertising market is noticeably healthier than it was a year ago, Rita Ferro, president of global advertising sales at The Walt Disney Co. , told B+C.

“We’re in a much better place than we were a year ago going into this upfront presentation,” Ferro said. “It’s not 100% back, but it’s most definitely better than it was.”

More to the point, Disney has what advertisers are looking to buy.

“We also have scale across streaming and a pretty significant sports business,” she said. “It’s really where advertisers are spending dollars right now.”

Also Read: NBCUniversal Will Pitch a Combination of Content, Tech in Upfront

With ESPN, Disney controls about 35% of televised live sports. A lot of the big-ticket items — such as halftime sponsorships or Home Depot’s involvement with College GameDay — are sold on a multiple-year basis.

“Our multiyear sports business has never been more robust than it is right now,” Ferro said. “To see brands come in and commit long-term, multiyear investments around sports, to me, that’s always a good indicator when there’s a good market. Last year we didn’t see what we’re seeing this year.”

Sports commands engagement partly because it’s live, and Disney has other live moments on the ABC broadcast network.

Audiences tune in to watch shows like American Idol, Dancing With the Stars and The Bachelor live, as well as awards shows like The Oscars and specials like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest .

“Live moments matter,“ Ferro said. “They bring audiences to the platform. News is part of that. We’re very bullish on ABC having a place in the portfolio.”

Ferro noted that ABC’s surprise hit, The Golden Bachelor , got on the schedule partly because of last year’s strikes by writers and actors.

“The strike allowed us to actually take a chance and go there, and it performed beyond our expectations,“ Ferro said. “So much so that there are going to be more announcements next week, on stage, of what's happening with that franchise.“

Ferro said advertisers continue to want to be on broadcast as part of their media plan.

“I think the largest opportunity for us is really how we envision the primetime lineup to be complementary and additive to incremental reach in terms of what’s happening on streaming, what’s happening on sports,” she said. ABC will have “a primetime lineup that really drives ultimately incremental reach, which is what marketers are looking for and how we measure and deliver that for, and package it for our partners.”

Speaking of streaming, on its earnings call Tuesday , Disney said it had 22.5 million subscribers for the ad-supported version of Disney Plus .

“[That’s] more than 50% of people who are signing up for Disney Plus , so it’s been pretty significant in terms of its ramp-up,” Ferro added.

Disney has invested in its own ad tech stack and identity graph. Now both Disney Plus and Hulu are on Disney’s own ad server.

“All of that advertising innovation, whether it’s choice-based units, interactive units, situational units, etc., all of that now you can buy across all of our services,” Ferro said.

“And we recently launched the ability to buy all of those programmatically as well,” she added. ”So it’s really a fully integrated experience now where the best of all of our technology and our innovation is rolling out across the full suite.”

Also Read: Nexstar Pitches Sports on The CW, Extra Reach via Stations (Upfronts)

Ferro said more and more ad clients want to buy through biddable transactions.

“We are allowing people to buy and transact across our total portfolio the way they want to, and measure and ultimately drive value through audience,“ she said. “So it’s really about reducing friction and allowing clients to buy the way they want to buy.”

Ferro expects Disney will use Nielsen for most of its transactions, but it wasn’t clear whether most buyers would be using Nielsen’s panel data or its newer panel-plus-big data ratings . She said she was surprised that some of the big agency holding companies are balking at Nielsen’s new system.

“I actually thought we would move everyone in big data, and it’s interesting to see the hesitation around that,” she said.

I actually thought we would move everyone in big data, and it’s interesting to see the hesitation around that.”

— Rita Ferro, president, Disney Ad Sales

“What’s happening in this marketplace is you’re gonna see a lot of different measurement currencies being used,” Ferro said. “And ultimately Nielsen, I think, is still the underlying currency regardless of who you talk to. But there are secondary currencies being used for secondary guarantees or some partners, depending on certain categories that may want to go with something else.”

One of Disney’s more recent innovations is Disney's Magic Words, a contextual tool that puts the right ads in the right content . Magic Words was introduced during Disney’s tech and data presentation at CES in January.

“Very few brands can create magic in the way that Disney can,“ Ferro said. “Immediately, there wasn’t a single [ad agency holding company] who didn’t say, ‘I want to be in.’

“It is very clear that when you have the right data informing the right scene and the right emotion, and having the right advertising to compliment that, that ultimately you understand that the potential outcome of that,” she said. “The performance of that is going to be stronger than a traditional advertising break. And so that’s where we’re really spending a lot of time, to make sure that as part of this data we get it right so that we can actually bring results to the market and really talk about what the next wave is.”