There was no Lincoln Center, and no clips from ABC shows to share, but Disney still managed to remotely recreate its annual upfront event for buyers and advertisers. Because of the pandemic, the company opted for a virtual upfront roadshow this year, with tailored agency presentations that were held over the past week and a half.
During the event, the company shared its new ad formats (including its first offering involving Hulu), offered brands a way to help rejuvenate their businesses following the pandemic, featured some surprise cameos that included Tom Brady and perhaps most importantly to many regular upfront attendees, featured Jimmy Kimmel’s annual upfront roast.
Disney ad sales chief Rita Ferro and her team were forced to revamp Disney’s upfront after canceling their annual Lincoln Center event in March as a result of Covid-19. A month ago, Disney said it would hold an upfront roadshow—featuring nine tailored presentations for holding companies and their clients, direct-to-consumer brands and the media, held over two weeks—instead of a single livestreamed event.
The event’s focus “came down to three core pillars: At Disney, we create culture, we drive connections and creativity is a cornerstone of what we do,” Ferro told Adweek. Those three areas were spotlighted in separate packages narrated by Ellen Pompeo, Ryan Seacrest and Kerry Washington.
While the 45-minute presentations were largely identical, they differed in two major ways. The opening segment—featuring Anthony Anderson and his Black-ish castmates in character as employees at the comedy’s fictional ad agency, Stevens & Lido—included specific shout outs to each holding company. Later in the presentation, Disney personalized the brand spotlights that focused on the work it had created with those agencies and their brands.
As brands emerge from the pandemic, Ferro said in the presentation, Disney advertising will “help serve in the growth, health and in some cases, renewal of your businesses.”
Disney’s upfront messaging changed as a result of the pandemic because there weren’t clips to show from ABC’s pilots, which hadn’t completed filming prior to the shutdown. As a result, “we were able to spend more time talking about our advertising capabilities,” said Ferro.
New Disney ad offerings in this upfront include a unified ad product from Disney and Hulu, called Disney Hulu XP, which will roll out Oct. 1. It will deliver an addressable audience—adding Hulu to Disney’s first-party data—across all screens, with targeting options, and will be guaranteed on completed video views.
“You’re able to buy guarantees on completed views across the entirety of Hulu and the Disney digital platforms,” said Ferro. “It’s one ad solution that will be powered by first party data that sits across both of them.”
The company is also debuting a unified programmatic approach that will enable client audience data for enhanced targeting and the ability to measure and manage brand frequency across the Disney Digital platform. In the upfront, it will offer buyers one storefront for all biddable video inventory.
“The scale of digital will be extraordinarily significant as part of everything that we do in this upfront,” said Ferro.
Luminate, Disney’s advanced advertising suite, is partnering with Samba TV to create a cross-platform attribution solution, which can measure various KPIs—including purchase intent and time spent with brands—across linear, digital and connected TV.
Disney Advertising Sales is also joining Nielsen’s Addressable TV platform beta, which looks to maximizing delivery in linear addressable TV by giving clients the ability to activate and deactivate addressable ads based on their needs.
During the presentation, the company touted its Disney CreativeWorks branded content studio, whose recent projects include State Farm’s partnership on ESPN’s The Last Dance featuring deep fakes of ’90s SportsCenter segments featuring Kenny Mayne and Keith Olbermann, as well as Toyota capping its 11-season Modern Family partnership with an animated farewell spot that aired before the series finale.
Disney CreativeWorks houses all of the portfolio’s various branded content studios, including ESPN CreativeWorks, NatGeo Content Studio and now Hulu’s GreenHouse.
Programming plans
In lieu of content clips, Ferro spoke with programming execs from Disney’s broadcast and cable platforms—ABC Entertainment, ABC News, ESPN, Hulu, FX, National Geographic and Freeform—about what’s coming up. Among the highlights: three new shows from ABC, a spinoff of FX’s American Horror Story called American Horror Stories and a new Tom Brady docuseries airing next year on ESPN.
Brady made a surprise cameo at the presentation’s conclusion, joining Black-ish’s Stevens & Lido Zoom call and explaining, “Now that I’m part of the Disney family, I can basically pop into whatever meeting I want.”
The quarterback had been scheduled to appear onstage at the Lincoln Center upfront, prior to the pandemic, Ferro said—and before his decision in March to leave the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“We were excited we were still able to have him participate in this way, because he’s a busier guy now,” said Ferro.
ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke said all the returning shows started up their writers rooms very early, so they will be ready to go as soon as production is able to get back up and running after the pandemic.
Unlike many of its broadcast rivals, ABC hasn’t yet released a schedule for next season. While the network offered to finish one, giving the continued production uncertainty due to Covid-19 and the fact that more sports events could be airing in the fall as more leagues push their seasons to later in the year, Ferro said it wasn’t necessary.
“I just didn’t think right now, given how early we are in the process, people needed to know exactly what night at exactly what time slot,” she said. “It also feels very legacy television. I don’t know that that was as important as talking about the scale and the volume of content that we were going to be putting out.” Ferro added that ABC’s schedule will be ready when clients need it.
Connor Schell, ESPN’s evp of content, said that network is working on ways to bring its live sports broadcasts to life without fans in the stands, including new camera angles and innovative use of audio.
And of course, no Disney upfront would be complete without what Ferro called “the best thing in upfront week”: an appearance from Jimmy Kimmel, who as he has done almost every year since 2003, hilariously but savagely roasted Disney and its rivals. (His best upfront jokes can be found here.)
Upfront negotiations begin
With many brands still reeling from Covid-19, this year’s upfront marketplace will operate on a staggered timetable.
“We will move when clients and agencies are ready to do so,” said Ferro. She’s already been in early talks with brands who have incumbencies as part of multi-year commitments across sports like football. “Most of those have now been renewed.”
Upfront talks picked up during the past couple weeks, and will continue throughout the summer, said Ferro. “Anybody who’s in sports will probably move earlier than others,” while some advertisers who move in a calendar upfront—which is something that a group of brands have already been doing.
Other than losing out on the opportunity to meet with clients in person, Ferro doesn’t seem to miss doing an in-person upfront this year.
“I know we may eventually do an event in Lincoln Center again, but it was really great to do it this way,” said Ferro. “I feel like we got the outcome we wanted, and the feedback has been great. [Clients] thought it was nice break, and they were able to enjoy it.”
While the roadshow has wrapped, Disney isn’t done with its upfront events quite yet: Hulu will also be presenting during the postponed NewFronts, holding its session on June 22.
