Disney CEO Bob Iger launches tech, data showcase at CES

Disney convened its fourth annual Tech and Data Showcase for advertisers at CES in Las Vegas on Wednesday, kicking it off with affirmation from CEO Bob Iger.

“We know from a century of experience that when we marry our exceptional creativity with our relentless commitment to innovation, the results are never less than extraordinary,” Iger said in a video message. “The possibilities before us have never been more exciting and I’m so pleased for you to hear from the team today about the trails they’re blazing.”

Disney Advertising President Rita Ferro came onstage a minute later, beginning a series of exec remarks highlighting various initiatives across content, advertising and technology. (Chief Brand Officer Asad Ayaz focused his segment on the company’s big plans for fan confab D23.)

Ads are a key component to Disney meeting its closely scrutinized goal of turning a profit in streaming by the end of this year. While the Disney+ flagship reached 150 million global subscribers in the most recent quarter, Iger and his management team continue to face questions about the financial viability of the streaming business. Although scale has enabled the company to implement price increases, ad revenue will take some pressure off the drive to attain subscribers, which Iger himself has conceded was a misstep after the ultra-successful early rollout of Disney+ in late-2019 and 2020.

Alluding to newer players in streaming advertising (like rival Netflix, though no names were named), Ferro said Disney tech stack was “intentionally built for streaming” many years ago. “We’re not renting or borrowing our technology,” she said. “It’s no one else’s technology. We own it. And unlike others, who recently decided to get into the advertising business as part of their business strategy, Disney is in it from the beginning.”

While the ad tier of Disney+ is new, having launched a little more than a year ago, Hulu’s roots are deep. The service launched in 2007 as an ad-only streaming outlet before adding a tier for ad-free viewing in 2015. Disney recently took full control of Hulu after buying out Comcast’s one-third stake.

Ferro said half of new subscribers to Disney+ are choosing the cheaper, ad-supported version, with view times on the ad-free and ad-supported tiers thus far nearly the same. That balance “speaks to the combined quality of our user experience, our content and our advertising,” the exec asserted.

The company announced several new offerings for advertisers during the event, including Disney’s first “shoppable” experience, Gateway Shop, and partnerships with Innovid and Lucid Impact Measurement by Cint. Disney is also launching a tech-enabled product it dubs Magic Words, which enables brands to target specific scenes and moments and characters from across the company’s array of networks, studios and platforms. A food advertiser, Ferro explained, could find specific bits of dialogue or segments during a talk show where they could insert their messages.

“Through the power of this context, brands can capture a specific moment, mood or emotion and personalize your messaging around that emotion,” Ferro said. “We believe the combination of being able to reach the right audience in just that right moment or mood has the potential to be magic.”

The Magic Words feature is currently “in discovery,” Ferro said, and will roll out at the upfront for beta partners, with full availability by the end of the year. Yahoo