Will Disney Be The Next Ad Platform Giant Player?

Disney, like many media companies, has for years tried to reach large audiences by deciding to commercialize their customer data, just like Google and Meta.

To date, the well-known company founded by Walt Disney can say that it has achieved this goal!

How did Disney get there?

Just think of the number of experiences and initiatives that Disney has created in the entertainment sector that does not stop only with traditional television media but include international theme parks, cruises, and events around the world.

Estimates show that in the US alone Disney gets 218 million monthly visitors and 100 million family accounts.

The process

In 2017, Disney began recreating a network of advertisers, bringing them back from the different TV channels. Since then, it has committed to merging the backend technology of both the online branches and the traditional TV channels.

It has also committed to unifying the backend technology and using the same for both the online branches and the traditional TV properties.

Now the Disney group has all the platforms in one organization as reported by Rita Ferro, advertising manager at Disney.

And they have a more detailed view of the Disney customer or of the different Disney customer segments; being able to plan, direct message and sell, all in a single platform.

The push and the efforts to unify Disney, from an advertising standpoint are still ongoing - however, the goals achieved so far have been:

- Full integration and extension of Hulu's self-service ad-buying tool.

- Extension of Hulu’s attribution tool and full integration into the Disney attribution tool.

- Creation of a unified database that allows advertisers to match their users' data with those of Disney and Hulu.

All these initiatives and improvements were made possible after Disney took full control of Hulu in 2019.

Not only did this give Disney ownership of the leading ad streaming service that is linked to national TV programs, but it also gave the company ownership of the entire Hulu Ad Server.

The company has incubated many of these advanced capabilities within Hulu. Now the aim is to build a single Disney Ad Server.

What are they working on now?

What Disney is working on right now is an increase in a database that has not been yet explored, increasing it from over 1,000 segments a year ago to nearly 2,000 segments today.

It’s an important work in progress, and very important for the advertisers, especially with the new cookie policies in place impacting Google and Meta and their advertising logic.