Rita Ferro on Disney+ Ads and How Jimmy Kimmel Made the Upfront Despite Getting Covid

Following upfront week presentations, Adweek is sitting down with all the presenting ad sales chiefs for postmortem conversations about their respective events. We've already chatted with NBCU's Linda Yaccarino, Fox's Marianne Gambelli and TelevisaUnivision's Donna Speciale. Now up: Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of advertising sales and partnerships. This year, Disney moved to a new, expansive venue at Basketball City in New York to dazzle the upfront week in-person crowd with a massive stage, a bevy of TV screens and, as Ferro told Adweek ahead of the presentation, "more talent than [Disney's] ever had before." Disney also held three smaller events leading up to the in-person upfront week, including its second annual tech and data showcase, its third annual sports summit and a storytellers’ showcase. Though the company hasn't decided whether to continue in Basketball City for the next upfront, Disney shared exclusively with Adweek that it already has locked in its next upfront date: Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Ferro explained Disney's strategy for showcasing its whole portfolio, talked about Disney+'s new ad-supported tier and revealed what it was like behind the scenes after Jimmy Kimmel, the company's annual upfront roaster, tested positive for Covid-19. Adweek: This year, the presentation had a great flow and showcased a significant portion of the portfolio. What was the magic formula for planning things?Rita Ferro: The upfront was really about how do we tell a big-picture story of the volume of content coming from the Walt Disney Company because we have a lot of different endpoints, and we're the home of streaming in a way that no one else has in the marketplace, premium storytelling in the streaming space with Hulu that has been around for 14 years. But since it was integrated and we took operational control a couple of years ago, it has been a driver of the AVOD opportunity in the marketplace. Now, with the launch of Disney+, what does that bring to market in addition to ESPN+? So the reach and scale that we have in streaming are unrivaled by anybody else in the marketplace. We wanted to make sure that that got its moment, but also that people understand—when you have the volume of content coming out to feed linear networks and broadcast networks across cable and then all of these streaming platforms, the volume of quality content coming from Walt Disney Company is significant. And we wanted to make sure we were able to tell that story. Less from a "what's coming on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 8, 9, 10 o'clock," because that's always going to be filled with great content, but it's really about understanding the depth and breadth of the stories that we were telling across all of our television studios, award-winning studios who produce some of the best programming on our rival networks as well. And so it was just making sure that we were able to showcase that, which I think we did in a way that felt big without feeling very traditional. That was how we thought about it. It was less about the brands and what is coming from Nat Geo versus Disney, which we have historically done and worked very well. But I think that the way a consumer views today is less about that. And it's more about, "How do I find great content that I want to watch?" So we wanted to make sure that, regardless of what you're looking for—whether it's documentaries, whether it's great storytelling from a multicultural point of view, new programming coming from Onyx Collective or a great live sporting event that you want to watch with your friends and family across screens—you'll find it from one of our platforms and one of our opportunities that we bring to market. Disney Showcases Marvel-ous Disney+ Offering at In-Person Upfront What's the feedback you've been hearing since the presentation on Tuesday?The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. People said they felt really engaged, really entertained. They understood the volume that came from Disney. Someone else said you guys understood how to tell your story better than many we have seen. Because even though it's very big, it's very clear what our strategy is across each of them. It's very clear because when you have such big platforms, you have to understand what you're going to put where and why and the audiences we serve on every one of those platforms. So it's been unbelievably positive. The change of venue was great for us in the sense that it was able to allow us to create an event because it wasn't in the same venue we had done for many years. And it was the first time in-person because last year, we did a remote upfront with Hulu as part of what we were doing. But it was the first time we had Hulu in addition to all of our traditional platforms in one presentation, plus Disney+. And there's so much excitement around Disney+. From the moment we launched Disney+, I remember a couple of our advertisers calling and saying, "So what's the date of the AVOD product?" Wow, really?Years ago. So that announcement was exciting. People want to be on platforms that have broad-reaching content that audiences love, generations love. You have movies I watched as a kid that my daughter loves that my mom watched, so those are stories that transcend generations, transcend story. And they've been expanded beyond the traditional way we consume them with every reimagining. You saw [Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production president] Sean Bailey on stage. Sean Bailey takes traditional stories and reimagines them in new ways. I'm so excited to see what's coming with Disenchanted because I loved [the original film,] Enchanted. That's one of my daughter's favorite movies. It's really about the ability to do heritage stuff around Disney. But then Kevin Feige's worlds of how he's taken the Marvel Cinematic Universe from big blockbuster theatrical movies and made wonderful television experiences through our streaming apps to have broader audiences enjoy. And the things that didn't even make it on stage. It was a long show, but we didn't even have everything there. There was still Pixar and Star Wars and all the stuff that, hopefully, next year will be on stage. But you have to manage the amount that you're showing while hopefully giving people enough to understand the volume of the great storytelling and creative geniuses that we have across the Walt Disney Company. There was so much. And Kevin Feige even dropped a stat that the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness tripled viewership for related Disney+ shows and movies. It must be exciting having that information to share with marketers.We are very good about sharing insights and research with our partners. I think the anticipation of Disney+ will be something that I think people are going to want more information about. And as we get ready to share more within the specific launch date, I think we're going to have a lot more of those vibrant insights that clients are looking for in terms of how they can best position themselves to be part of the launch of that platform. And speaking of Disney+, the company announced four minutes of ads per hour and not targeting preschool children, which is great. What makes you most excited about those announcements and having Disney+ in your arsenal?When you look at Disney+ plus Hulu plus ESPN+, there's just nothing in the marketplace like it. The scale of that level of storytelling, nothing compares to that. It is an average of four minutes per hour. The reason for that is we know most people come to Disney+ for our movies, and movies have a different ad load than a series would. So what drives Hulu is more series. What drives Disney+ is more consumption of movies, and therefore the ad loads will look different. So it'll be an average of four minutes an hour, but it depends on the types of content you stream. And you're absolutely right. We will be serving advertising to kids, not in preschool content, but with robust controls for the kids and their families and obviously not collecting data on those profiles or using targeting. But we do expect that, given the four-quadrant nature of the types of content, we will have some opportunity there to look at how we think about family viewing in that experience. I ran the kids business for a long time in this company on the Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD side and Radio Disney and all of that. So I have a long history of working in the kids advertising marketplace, and so does my team, which is great because we understand the importance of doing the right thing in this space. We know that over half of our [Disney+] audience is adults without kids. And we want to make sure that we're super-serving those fans with the best content and the best advertising experience possible. There's some great advertising that is great storytelling, and how we think about those partnerships going forward is going to be a great opportunity for us on Disney+. Are there going to be brands that are willing to commit to thinking about the platform creatively and differently? When you want to have all of the tools for measurement, attribution, planning, executing your buys, being able to do cross-platform, all of that, Disney offers all of that. And yet, it's probably some of the best storytelling in the market.Rita Ferro Jimmy Kimmel tested positive for Covid-19 on the day of the presentation but still managed to Zoom in. What was that like behind the scenes?He wanted to be part of the show. And so, what was it behind the scenes? It was how can we make sure that we can make that happen for him in a way that feels comfortable to do so and is comfortable for our audiences and ultimately allows him to feel the reaction. We were able to set him up at one of our studios, and he was able to deliver the script that he shared with us that morning, which was hysterical, I think one of the best he's ever done. And he did it from the Live with Kelly and Ryan studio, and I just thought he was so good. People want Jimmy Kimmel to be at our upfront. I remember the one year where his son was born, and for medical reasons with his son, he couldn't be there. It was a great upfront, but something was missing. The magic of Jimmy was missing. And so, we were thrilled that he felt good enough to be able to do the event because he really did. And we were thrilled that he was so passionate about wanting to do it. And I just thought he did an extraordinary job. So what's that like when you get a call the day of: "Jimmy Kimmel has Covid-19." Is there a war room? What happens?First, we thought it had to be wrong because he had Covid-19 recently. He had a guest host two or three weeks ago. And so we thought it was wrong. And so, just for precautionary reasons, regardless of if it's wrong or right, we said immediately, "What's the backup plan?" And we have extraordinary talent here who, by the time they called me, they had a solution. It wasn't a "Rita!" It's, "Rita, here's what's happening, and here are the two options." And it was very clear what the two options were [doing it from a studio or outside of the event]. And this was the best option, so we quickly pivoted. We have great teams who understand we got to get the signal in. What does that mean? How does that change? The hardest, most complicated thing was changing the last line I had to deliver to make sure it wasn't a handoff to a person. It was handing him off on a Zoom. His team was great. Our team was great. I have to tell you, for something that could have been a very complicated situation, he was wonderful and worked with our teams to get it squared away. How did you feel about Basketball City and the change of venue? It was expansive and full of TV screens. Is Disney thinking about going back?I loved the TVs everywhere. I loved an expansive space. We'll do a debrief now and postmortem on the venue, what works and what doesn't work, and see if we're going to go back. I loved the flexibility of a canvas versus a theater, where you have less room to move in a theater. There's pros and cons to all of it. It felt right for this presentation. It felt right for the big screens representing the bigness of our offering. But we're always going to look at and see what venues are available out there for this size audience. We have a lot of people who want to come to our event. We couldn't let everyone in, and, by the way, I think we let over 3,000 people in the room. It worked well for this year. What can you tell us about early negotiations?I think the upfront market has definitely started to move. We have been having conversations for weeks now. But it's started to move. There is a sense of anxiousness in the marketplace from everything going on in the stock market and with inflation. At the same time, there's tremendous demand for being in the right partnerships and having the right overall relationship with certain companies. For us, if you start to look at some trends in the marketplace, what you're starting to see there are categories, for example, consumer packaged goods are down, but then you have other categories like pharmaceuticals that are up or entertainment. People are going back to theaters, so movie spending is up. And so those categories are up, some are down. And then you have categories very endemic to a sports space, like sports betting and cryptocurrencies, who have been spending a lot of money in the scatter marketplace, and they're moving as part of the upfront, which is new. It's going to be an interesting upfront from that perspective. I also think it's an interesting upfront because you're seeing a lot of the digital-first players who were traditionally in the NewFronts space. Google, for example, who came into upfront week because that's where the majority of the big dollars move. They want to be seen as a platform there. And I think that's good for the television business overall to have big, digital-first players. At the end of the day, you want to have all of the people who are competing for dollars being able to be seen at the same time so that you can see the value of what you get in each one of the platforms that you have partnerships with. While we have premium content, our capabilities and the scale that we have as Disney are at the scale of a platform. And so that's why the tech and data showcase in February was so important so people understand when you want to have all of the tools for measurement, attribution, planning, executing your buys, being able to do cross-platform, all of that, Disney offers all of that. And yet, it's probably some of the best storytelling in the market. For something that could have been a very complicated situation, he was wonderful and worked with our teams to get it squared away.Rita Ferro on Jimmy Kimmel getting Covid-19 right before the upfront One of the biggest topics this upfront season is measurement. Are there any alternative currencies you're transacting on or you're excited about?We're doing a bunch of tests with vendors. I will tell you, almost every deal conversation, Nielsen is still the currency. But at the same time, we have a lot of conversations around cleanroom solutions—big opportunity in this upfront. A lot of people have asked to do that. When you have the size of the first-party data graph the Walt Disney Company has, the ability to transact on first-party data is really important. And so, setting up cleanroom solutions to be able to do that in a compliant way has been important. And so we're definitely doing cleanroom solutions. We are also working with partners like Samba TV to do cross-platform planning and measurement for clients. Tens of vendors that we are working with, it depends really on the product, the category and the partner. Everyone has their own flavor that they like to bring to market and uniqueness. And yet, at the same time, Disney and Google and some of the agencies are partnering with Nielsen to start to roll out a pilot for the Nielsen One measurement currency. Ultimately, we need to have a currency that works across the marketplace. And to the extent that a Google can bring a digital-first party to the table to figure out how to make that currency work. And you have a portfolio like Disney that has a lot of sports, which is very different in an impression-based world to entertainment and streaming. We want to make sure that we have all the types of platforms and the types of buys at the table that would be part of a new currency before it rolls out. You mentioned earlier how this presentation couldn't fit everything, so what can you tell us about the 2023 Oscars and the strategy around that?The great thing about the Oscars is it was definitely one of the awards shows that was up this year [in the ratings]. It wasn't up because of what happened on the show [with Will Smith]. If you look at the minute by minute an hour ratings, it was already trending up before that happened, so the lift was part of the overall show. I think they've been much better at listening to the importance of having a host, and we saw the value of that as part of the presentation this year, but it's also about how we think the performances play a role in that. What do we think in terms of how the segments and the awards that are in the show play a role in that? We've gotten better, and we were going to continue to iterate as part of that. But it's definitely part of our upfront negotiations. Is there any message you want marketers to take away from the upfront presentation?I'm thrilled that so many showed up. I hope that they understand that we value the partnership of what they've done with us and integrations and the work we're doing together. I think they understand that when we've worked together with them, we've been able to deliver in a way that has been unique to Disney, and we're looking forward to continuing to expand that with the rollout of Disney+ and what we're going to be able to do together in the streaming space and ultimately deliver on their business. At the end of the day, the impact on their businesses is ultimately the best barometer of how our partnerships are going to be measured.