LAS VEGAS – Disney launched an advertising certification for live sports and entertainment, along with biddable deals for live sports using its ad server, the media giant announced at CES 2025.
Google Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP are the first demand-side platforms to receive the certification, while Magnite is the only third-party supply-side partner at launch.
“For me, one of the biggest headlines and something I’ve been working on for so long at Disney and ESPN is the announcement of our offering in Live for Sports focused around biddable advertising,” Matt Barnes, vice president of automated sales at Disney Advertising, said in this interview with Lisa Granatstein, editorial director of Beet.TV.
Advertisers can “really take advantage of moments that you really can’t plan for those lightning-in-a-bottle moments and really be able to put your brand next to live sports in a scalable way that we’ve never seen before,” Barnes said.
Biddable ‘Magic Words’
Disney Advertising also is expanding its “Magic Words” offering, a format the company introduced last year to provide contextual advertising using advanced data, so that advertisers can bid for placements more quickly.
“This year is we’re taking it to the next level….we’re gonna start to offer that in biddable environments,” Barnes said. “Not only are we offering traditional Magic Words, but we’ve also announced Magic Words Live…It’s the next evolution of Magic Words and it’s now available in every marketplace.”
