Walt Disney Co. has a new suite of advanced advertising offerings called Luminate, which spans the entire portfolio of linear networks, digital experiences and social executions across ABC, ESPN, Freeform and the Disney Channels. Luminate will use ESPN’s LiveConnect as a launch pad of sorts for other live events across the Disney portfolio and better enable the company to “speak to advertisers with one voice,” says Josh Mattison, VP, Advertising Sales, Disney Digital Network.
Luminate is managed by Laura Nelson, SVP, Audience Solutions, Disney|ABC Advertising Sales and Marketing, and ESPN’s Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer and Ad Platforms.
The suite is powered by linear optimization, digital audience guarantees, digital private marketplace (programmatic) and attribution studies to quantify advertiser return on investment. Within the new unit, LiveConnect will now be used “to explore ways to extend to live events across the entire Disney portfolio,” the company said in a statement.
In this interview with Beet.TV last week at Disney’s NewFront event, Mattison explains the expected influence that Luminate is expected to have.
“There’s no question people recognize Disney and Disney’s content prowess across all the various IP, but as a data and data informed audience solution partner it’s not something that we’ve been very public about in the past,” Mattison says. “But if you look at what we’ve set up with Disney/ABC’s Luminate, it really is a framework that’s going to apply to all of our environments.”
Those environments range from pure digital into longer-form venues like Hulu and YouTube TV. “So it is truly a suite of solutions that span all of Disney ABC for advanced audience targeting,” Mattison says.
BlueKai is Disney’s current DMP and “LiveRamp has also been a fantastic partner. We’ve been able to do data matching and then do either hyper targeting or negative targeting, where we exclude certain people because they might already be customers of an advertiser.”
Luminate will help to enhance the existing sales ethos at Disney.
“When we come into a room with an advertising partner, we do so with all of our assets. So in the room is Good Morning America. In the room is American Idol,” says Mattison. “The second is you can see partnerships that will span multiple assets. You can go all the way from being a theatrical movie partner to having integrations into one of our ABC shows, into the Disney Digital Network and using creators or influencers as a layer in that program.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.
