ESPN

When The Walt Disney Company launches the Disney+ direct-to-consumer streaming service in late 2019, it won’t be advertising-supported. But Disney Advertising Sales is already talking to brands that want to “experience the Disney customer far and away beyond just the traditional advertising,” says sales chief Rita Ferro. Disney+ will be the third piece of a […]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—As the industry learns to transact in new and hopefully more uniform ways, Disney is building targeting segments that will ultimately represent the totality of its audiences. It’s a process over which Disney has far more control than, say, reconciling disparities in current digital measurement options. To make audience targeting more mainstream […]

In the most significant manifestation of its desire to offer one-stop advertising, Walt Disney Co. is consolidating ESPN and Disney/ABC properties under Rita Ferro while announcing that longtime ESPN sales chief Ed Erhardt will retire in early 2019. In addition to ESPN and Disney/ABC, Ferro’s domain as President of Disney Advertising Sales will include Disney’s […]

Widespread change requires “a lot of experimentation for people to change dramatically,” and that process has just begun in the quest for more advanced television targeting, according to LiveRamp’s Allison Metcalfe. Then there is complexity, which can inhibit change when not all entities are committed to changing at the same pace, notes Mike Rosen of […]

ESPN is heading to this year’s Cannes Lions as part of Walt Disney Co.’s “one-stop shop” platform, as the sports giant begins to experiment with household-addressable television and retargeting OTT viewers across its digital footprint. “Disney certainly has a lot to say at Cannes this year,” ESPN’s Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer & Ad […]

At a Digital Content NewFronts where there was a plethora of new content distribution partnerships, ESPN was the rare standout. “One of the big things that we did announce was the fact that we had a big announcement, that we have no new distribution deals,” says Travis Howe, SVP, Platform Ad Sales Strategy, Solutions & […]

Amid all the hoopla that accompanies the Digital Content NewFronts, something more substantial is taking place. It’s the blurring of lines between traditional and digital media, as evidenced by the growing number of new partnerships. Whether it’s Twitter and ESPN or Disney and Tastemade, “To me, that was very encouraging seeing all these partnerships form […]

Always known for its male reach, ESPN’s audience is now 30% female. This diversity, combined with programming that’s nearly 100% live, is helping the sports juggernaut broaden its advertiser mix while making it a big player in real-time marketing. Meanwhile, its audience targeting capabilities can be based on outcomes of sporting events and their impact […]

Twitter has crafted new content deals with NBCUniversal and ESPN that the social platform says will extend the reach of those partners’ original shows. The company is also expanding its existing relationship with Viacom with offerings like Comedy Central’s Creator’s Room, BET Breaks and MTV News. Video views on Twitter have nearly doubled in the […]

Although using first and third-party to target linear television audiences is in the testing phase, it stands to increase the attribution TV gets for prompting consumer behavior. “At ESPN, we certainly think the audience buying future is upon us,” says Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer & Ad Platforms at ESPN. In this interview with […]

COLOGNE – In the arms race that is automated or programmatic TV, there’s much realignment occurring among tech players. They know if they’re too slow on the drawing board an Amazon or Facebook or Google will swoop in and beat them to the launch pad. This is not lost on marketing analytics provider DataXu, which […]

CANNES – Are media buyers too preoccupied trying to define “TV” and “video”? It’s worth approaching the issue from the sell-side, by way of Fox and ESPN. The answer rests on delivery systems, according to Joe Marchese, President, Advertising Revenue, Fox Networks Group. “The idea is, is a stream being delivered in a way in […]

CANNES – Yes, broadcasting live sporting events is expensive considering the rights fees. But it’s a great viewing environment at a time when consumers can avoid ads in other programming. It’s that “other” programming that concerns media sellers like ESPN and Fox, as evidenced by the discussion during a Comcast panel at the Cannes Lions […]

CANNES – Call it television, video or neither. What matters to ESPN’s Eric Johnson is that it delivers “value and impact” to advertisers. Like other attendees of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Johnson welcomed the many conversations about how the industry can come together and drive more effective ways of measurement. “We’re trading on […]

Shortly before the 2017 TV Upfront began, Disney unified the way it sells ABC, Freeform and its Disney entertainment cable networks to advertisers. If only the advertising/media industry could coalesce around standardized cross-platform audience measurement. Like other media executives whose content is distributed on an ever-increasing number of platforms, Debra O’Connell “would like to see […]

NEW YORK — Good creative is simply good creative, but a brand needs to know which emotions an ad elicits in a customer and what the takeaway will be, said Barbara Singer, VP, Advertiser Insights & Strategy, ESPN during an interview with Beet.TV, citing research ESPN has conducted into brand image and brand metrics across screens. “Entertaining […]

NEW YORK – Even for a stalwart TV brand like ESPN, digital represents a huge portion of its footprint. In fact, digital now brings a 23% lift in reach for ESPN , said Barbara Singer, VP, Advertiser Insights & Strategy, ESPN during an interview with Beet.TV. “If you didn’t have digital you would miss a lot […]