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If you’ve seen a marketing campaign from Disney in the last few years, chances are Shannon Ryan has had her hand in it.
Since she joined the company in 2019, Ryan’s marketing purview has expanded to include ABC Entertainment, ABC News, Freeform, Onyx Collective, Disney Television Studios, Disney Branded Television, National Geographic and Hulu’s overall brand. As the company’s president of marketing for Disney Entertainment Television, she oversees the campaigns for more than 200 titles, including hit shows like Only Murders in the Building, Abbott Elementary and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Between the pandemic, her ever-increasing duties and the unexpected shifts in CEO (from Bob Iger to Bob Chapek in 2020 and then back to Iger again last November), “a lot has changed in such a short amount of time,” said Ryan of her four years at Disney.
Though Ryan has a formidable marketing résumé, she began her career at Fox in 2006 on the publicity side. But she quickly pivoted to marketing, working on shows including Glee, Empire, New Girl, 9-1-1 and—in one of her last campaigns for Fox—The Masked Singer’s surprise debut in 2019.
“The Masked Singer was one that everyone felt was so wild and crazy and just bizarre,” recalled Ryan. “But that was the No. 1 show that season. It was a massive launch. That was a great win. It was shot entirely in secret, which helped when we finally went out there with the first teaser and announcement. [It] created a lot of noise.”
When Disney acquired Fox’s assets four years ago, Ryan made the move to the new parent company and has since spearheaded some of its biggest campaigns, including Abbott Elementary, Only Murders in the Building and The Kardashians, which became Hulu’s most-watched series premiere and the most-watched unscripted series in the platform’s history.
I tell the team that our goal is really to be the best storytellers for our storytellers, no matter what platform or brand that’s for.
Shannon Ryan
Ryan knows that marketing series across a multitude of Disney platforms can’t be one-size-fits-all. Her teams experiment with a variety of media mixes, executing new stunts and looking for new strategies for breaking news.
“I tell the team that our goal is really to be the best storytellers for our storytellers, no matter what platform or brand that’s for,” Ryan said. “Whether that’s a 30-second spot, a piece of key art or social asset, that’s always our goal. We always try and prioritize innovation and creativity and lead with a content-forward marketing strategy.”
A yearlong campaign for Disney+’s Limitless With Chris Hemsworth—including activations at San Diego Comic-Con and an event that featured press climbing the side of a 1,200-foot New York skyscraper—helped the series become the platform’s most-watched National Geographic unscripted title ever. And her team’s publicity pushes helped lead the Disney Entertainment group to a whopping 288 Emmy nominations last year.
All the Hulu-baloo
Ryan’s marketing strategy includes adjusting messaging across all brands to drive viewership to Hulu, increasing multiplatform viewership and reaching wider audiences.
“We really adjusted our marketing message to drive equally to both [Hulu and ABC],” Ryan said.
Since a Freeform or ABC show is also considered a Hulu show due to how quickly they become available to stream on the platform, her marketing push to Hulu is paying off. For Season 2 of Freeform’s Cruel Summer, the streamer contributed 83% of all the show’s multiplatform viewing, and Hulu’s median viewer age for breakout comedy Abbott Elementary is 22 years younger than on ABC.
Value Add
Disney’s brand value—the present value of earnings specifically related to the brand—has grown 52% over the past five years, to $49.5 billion, according to Brand Finance. The company’s brand value represents almost 30% of its overall enterprise value.
“[Abbott] was a show that we all believed in,” said Ryan. “It was so smart and so funny and so heartwarming. We really prioritized it in a meaningful way and also leaned into the pro-social side of things,” which includes partnerships with Scholastic and DonorsChoose.
Next up, Ryan is focusing on the campaigns for Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building and ABC’s senior citizen-themed Bachelor spinoff, The Golden Bachelor, looking to make yet another splash in the increasingly crowded streaming space.
“For so long, it was Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, and now it’s Peacock and Apple and Paramount+ and FAST channels—and Roku’s making original content,” said Ryan. “It’s more competitive than ever, and we’re constantly fighting for people’s attention.”
This story is part of Adweek’s Brand Genius 2023 honors, recognizing the top marketers who have delivered long-term success for some of the world’s leading brands.
This story first appeared in the July 2023 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.
