MIAMI – These are busy times at Disney|ABC following the consolidation of sales groups and it couldn’t come at a better time. Advertisers “want fewer, they want bigger, they want better,” says Marco Forte.
With this year’s reorganization, Forte is SVP, Disney|ABC Sales & Marketing. In this interview with Beet.TV at last week’s Beet Retreat 2017, Forte talks about advanced audience targeting, being able to reach viewers in “every life stage” and upcoming live televised events.
“Coming together as one team really has challenged everyone to think differently about the business. We think about it as holistically how can we create solutions for our clients across the entire portfolio,” says Forte.
He cites examples ranging from music to kids programming as the underpinning of the combined sales offerings unified by the reorganization. They include the Country Music Awards, the American Music Awards, The Good Doctor in primetime and The Bold Type on Freeform.
“We re-launched one of my kids’ favorite shows, Duck Tales, on Disney Channel. There’s a lot of great ways that we can think about content differently,” Forte adds.
Add to the mix American Idol, which will re-boot on March 11 “and it’s going to be bigger and better than ever before.”
Recent advertiser integrations include Mitsubishi’s Eclipse and the historic lunar spectacle, Google with Modern Family and Whole Foods on Freeform.
ABC|Disney is seeing “a lot of demand” for audience targeting beyond traditional age/sex demographics. “It’s what all of our clients are talking about. They want to understand the direction that we’re going.”
Asked for his view of the audience-targeting consortium OpenAP (Fox, Turner, Viacom), Forte says it’s “an answer” but not necessarily “the answer.”
Nonetheless, he’s excited that OpenAP is happening and about where the industry is moving. “Because I think it’s very important for our future.”
This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.
