Responsibly Different™
We started this channel in 2020 exploring how to best use business as a force for good utilizing our B Corp certification journey as our lens. Now, in 2025, we’re taking what we’ve learned and applying it more deeply to our industry of strategic media planning and buying. Tune in to our new Fireside series which are candid conversations amongst our team about the latest news in the industry, explore our upcoming Impact Chats episodes to uncover the power and role of media in shaping culture and examining the social and environmental impacts of our industry.
Responsibly Different™
Our Take on Disney's CES Announcements
Chris Marine and David Gogel unpack the highlights from Disney’s annual Tech and Data Showcase at CES. They discuss what the team is most excited about and explore the impact these innovations will have on media planning and buying in 2025 and beyond.
Welcome to Fireside, a responsibly different podcast, where we spark candid conversations about media investments and the strategies shaping the way we connect. Welcome to the debut of Fireside, a new series on the Responsibly Different podcast channel. Over the past five years for those of you that have been tuning in we've explored how business can be a force for good. Now, five years later, we're taking what we've learned and applying it more deeply to our industry of media and marketing. With Fireside, we're bringing you candid, timely conversations about the ever-evolving world of media, diving straight into trends, strategies and the pivotal role that media plays in shaping culture. In this very first episode, we reflect on Disney's big announcements at CES last night.
Speaker 1:The Consumer Electronics Show, a global stage for cutting-edge technology and innovation, ces is where the biggest brands and innovators reveal trends and tools that shape industries, including media and marketing. This annual event is essential for understanding how advancements in technology will influence the way we create, consume and connect. Last night's event was a prime example of this, showcasing the intersection of storytelling and technological innovation in ways that push boundaries and set new benchmarks for the industry. Media isn't just about what we consume. It's about how we connect. Strategic media planning and buying are at the heart of building authentic connections with people, and that authenticity can drive not only business success but also stronger communities when done well. Join Chris, marine and David Gogel as they unpack what Disney's announcements mean for the future of media and why they matter for brands, agencies and audiences alike. I'll let Chris take it from here.
Speaker 2:David, what a fun event last night. That was really cool to tune in. Virtually we were chatting a little bit beforehand hearing all the Disney sounds. I think it was Moana, a little bit of the Little Mermaid just getting people amped up. Big sizzle reel. Love the sizzle reel. For some reason, whenever Disney does a sizzle reel I get a little choked up. I don't know where that comes from, but it's a thing.
Speaker 3:Well, now they have all the sports feels too. The sizzles are only getting more sizzly.
Speaker 2:And all the sports things, all the sports ball, um. But I think the most exciting thing about last night was things that we're very passionate about and what I think why I think disney excels is it was all about marrying storytelling with technology. 100 and in today's age, media is technology, and who does storytelling better than disney? Not many in my book. So it was. It's just always exciting to hear how they're talking about, uh, the advancements in in content development and also how that's going to impact, uh, the advertising and media ecosystem as a whole. So excited to kind of dive into everything yeah, I'm sure we'll get into it.
Speaker 3:I I was excited about a lot of it. My the thing that had me the most energized was all the talk about live sports programming and how that will affect agencies and advertisers. I'm sure we'll get into it, but lots of, lots of great takeaways. It was a. It was a jam packed 45 minutes.
Speaker 2:And I'd say that was probably the theme of the evening was that emphasis on live advertising, live events. I mean, they said numerous times to the whole thing, each speaker, that the time is now for live advertising. So that was the overall theme. And while they're not the first one to market and especially because most everything they're talking about was in regards to streaming they're not the first to market with helping advertisers get into live programming. We know that NBC did it with the uh past macy's thanksgiving day parade. There's other streaming platforms that have done this, but disney has some extra magic up their sleeve, I think yeah, and again, I the netflix, is obviously really leaning in here and has had, you know, some success.
Speaker 3:I thought that the nfl programming on christmas day was it was, it was a was a win and was a good success. The the Beyonce halftime got a lot of attention. The Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight was obviously a disaster, with all the technical issues, but it's cool to see how Disney is going to approach this, because what Disney has that those other platforms don't is this integration across sports, live news, the Disney IP.
Speaker 2:They're going to be able to do it in a different way and I think that's really important for brands to be thinking about is that where you're showing up with your message and how you're investing in is the message. Sometimes that medium is the message I think is only going to be more and more important concepts, whatever 60 years later when that was originally said. Um, and that's what makes the the disney so special is that idea that when people tune in to whether it be espn, disney plus content, fx, you can roll on to that rolodex. You were mentioning abc news that they trust it's like there's so much brand love already and fandom with that content. You put your message there. With the different technology capabilities that are coming out, that is a really powerful position to make a strong impression.
Speaker 2:And if you can be thinking about not hammering a message over someone's head so frequently and just make it count when you do show up and really and really important moments, that's where the magic for business and brand growth happens.
Speaker 2:And that's what Josh Pattinson, their EVP of digital operations, really started kicking off the conversation with was talking about Disney's ability to nurture that fandom with love and and how it can take creative and how we can take target specific people across different moments entertainment and sports.
Speaker 2:So it was a strong kind of kickoff with their EVP of digital operations talking about that's really their focus. And then they started layering in all the different products that are part of their suite. When Dana McGraw, their SVP of data and science measurement, came out, I think the most important one out of there that links everything together and is just a lot of buzz but their Disney Select AI engine and talking about how their machine learning is leveraging lookalike modeling at scale and how that's helping keep accountable when it comes to shaping frequency up front, when it comes to planning and then understanding how you can be understanding frequency with how often you're reaching people, with also not impacting the reach elements so you can expand the reach or bring the reach in tighter without compromising too much frequency. Cause I think in the streaming universe that's one of the one of the largest complaints by folks in advertising and just people who watch at home is that sometimes the frequency of messaging can be overbearing and irritating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I, I completely agree, and I the one of the interesting things that they talked about during the that that segment of the presentation was now Disney Select AI is in a unified platform called Disney Compass, where you have essentially you know, advertiser, first-party data, third-party audiences, disney Select, disney Select AI, but also Magic Words, which I'm sure we'll get into more, but that they unveiled during last year's CES Tech and Data Showcase. So now all this rolls up to a new platform called Disney Compass, where advertisers and agencies will be able to go in and manage campaigns in a more holistic way within the Disney ecosystem in a way that they haven't been able to in the past.
Speaker 2:And a part of that. What's in that Disney compass that they're dubbing it is their Disney's bridge ID. They spent some time Dana McGraw, their SVP of data and fed government, talked a lot about that and that's a really important piece because that's talking about how how you transact in and across their universe is really going to be working on an individual business basis. So it's it's that metadata data, influencing the data on a very personalized level to what the individual brand needs, not looking at a larger scope or scale. That kind of serve many brands even within the same vertical. It's very personalized. So I know, David, you and I talk a lot about that for years now the idea that personalization is going to be more important. This bridge ID with Disney's select AI engine in that Disney compass for a simplified way of transacting and working through the reach, the measurement and everything, is a powerful, powerful platform.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I mean just to be specific about it right, brands and their agencies will be able to go in and set up these sequential journeys that will get optimized by Disney machine learning and the kind of creative library that gets uploaded and is leveraged equation too, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more in a second. It really is a game changing offering for for brands and their agencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's important because, with all of this, it's important to point out, as excited as I may get when it comes to Disney in general and their advancements in everything, they're not they're not the first to everything Like. One thing they were talking about within Disney Compass is their ability to analyze the reach curve. That is not something new. I give props. We've been using tools like that the cable industry, network spectrum, for example. They've been having those reach curves and there are other platforms that we've used to do that before. But again, what makes this announcement and everything from Disney important is that just their scale. They have a large swath. What was the number of amount of people on their streaming platform?
Speaker 3:now 157 million monthly active ads monthly ads ads and that's just ad ads and that's just ad. So that's like ad supported but that's what that's.
Speaker 2:What makes it all that much more important is that we're talking about a platform that has scale, um, that's going to read be reaching more people than what some more traditional mediums are even reaching people with now.
Speaker 3:Yeah On that. Just the final thought on the on the global scale. Obviously they talked a lot about their platform expanding globally. I thought it was really interesting that something like 96 percent of users view content from another country. That kind of was staggering to me.
Speaker 3:I did not think it would be that high. That's pretty cool to see, just like they're just the global reach of the, of the platform and, to your point, like I completely agree, it's not that they're first to market with some of these technologies, it's the fact that they're integrating it across the Disney, ip, hulu, espn, which we can talk about ESPN flagship in a second, and then I also like, as of Monday, now FUBU is a part of that too and that and that whole offering Right, so we're really talking about just the integration across the ecosystem and for advertisers and their agencies being able to tap into that in a way that they haven't been able to in the past is what's so exciting and anytime you mix, to your point earlier, storytelling and technology, it's you know it's going to provide more magic, to lack of the, using the Disney term than any other platforms can do lack of the using the Disney term than any other platforms can do.
Speaker 2:And I think the way that Dana ended the kind of talking points there was talking about the importance, with all of this, integrating different data points, how, if you leverage Disney's first party data with brand data, that is what can culminate for a really positive experience to the person viewing the messaging and viewing the content on the other side, so that all goes into what Jamie Power then kicked off.
Speaker 2:She's the SVP of Addressable and this is where they kind of picked up where they left off last year's tech showcase with talking about magic words and their approach that's allowing brands to reach audiences during those high visibility, oftentimes those live moments think the Oscars, think all the sports, and make sure that the message that's being delivered is matching to that contextual moment. So it's refreshing, I think, because for people who are passionate about storytelling, it's in a sense getting back to basics of that contextual alignment and where we've seen the industry going over the last couple of years since the talk of the deterioration of cookies Hate to bring up cookies into this because everyone's exhausted talking about that but it kind of feels like that notion of like get back to basics of storytelling, because now the technology is allowing you to be able to marry those moments of storytelling where it matters most with their magic words, what they're calling it.
Speaker 3:So, if just to really be specific about it, right, so magic words live is essentially scene level, contextual targeting for live news, sports and programming.
Speaker 3:The examples that they were using right were like those award shows speeches that maybe are super emotional cultural moment, allowing brands to tap into that huge upset in live sports, having a marketing messaging following that kind of that moment at commercial break that feels relevant and timely.
Speaker 3:You know, chris, I know we often talk about the importance of those cultural moments and how brands can tap in now, yeah, and that's all baked into the platform that you're going to be running your campaign in, which is so exciting and that's outside of the reach and frequency caps that you might be setting for a campaign. It's like it's an active kind of biddable moment which is really really cool to see. And when we think about the live element of here obviously ABC News Live and the other elements that they've had on there, but the, I think the big thing that most people are excited about is I don't think it has a name yet but this espn flagship kind of direct to consumer offering, all right, it doesn't, I don't think it has an official name yet, they're just calling it they just kept referring to it as their flag.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think it's yeah, so I don't think it's actually going to be called flagship, right, but this is like this direct to consumer offering which is going to have, like ESPN, betting social feeds, live streaming, sports commerce, like all in one unified platform. It's going to be a game changer for brands to tap into the fandom associated with live sports. I'm really excited to see the kind of units that come out of that. But, just off the bat, you can just imagine the ways in which you'll be able to get hyper, hyper targeted, especially if you're a brand that's used to playing in the sports kind of arena.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is a different mindset and I think they did a really good job differentiating and they said this numerous times throughout. But Jamie Powers, I think, really hit it home well when she kind of put an exclamation point at the end of this we're mentioning streaming is not about mimicking the broadcast experience and, to your point, they're trying to give people the power to shop, explore and play, all while keeping people glued in to that most influential device in the household, which is the television screen. So they're bringing in all of these aspects that are living in fragmented pieces across the media ecosystem all to one place to keep people, to keep people engaged and, to your point, that gives a really great opportunity for brands. But it's also going to have to make brands and agencies who are on the creative, advertising and content side. They're going to have to rethink how they go about developing their messaging strategy, Because what this is going to be most influenced by is if you have enough advertising and content, and I intentionally separate them.
Speaker 2:I know some folks use content interchangeably with ads, but they are separate. We can be feeding in numerous different types of ads and stories into the pipes of this media platform and this technology, and that's how it's going to be best served, because that's where magic words is going to come into play. It's going to help marry the right moment with the right message and it's going to be optimizing, doing a lot of what would be manual in the past or based on historical knowledge or planning. It's going to be happening in real time but in order to do that, the industry has to get out of its own way and outside of that traditional assembly line of a TV ad is produced and cut down for streaming and made for a binge type ad unit. It's like it can't be that traditional assembly line in order to maximize the strength of of of these media pipes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And the space where we're going to see that really come to life is with this pause plus kind of activation that they talked about, right, so the ability to have kind of they call it, they call it advergaming, right, where it's like essentially this gamified way of interacting with an ad, whether or not it's quizzes, it's polling, it's trivia, all these different ways in which the consumer is going to be able to interact with an ad on pause while they're within the Disney ecosystem.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready for adver more middle to upper funnel type marketing strategies, too, where it's not, while a lot of this is geared towards creating more shoppable moments. One of the things they talked about was that, starting this fall, that people are going to have the power to expand and explore different carousels. So think of those carousel ads that people see across the metas, the LinkedIn's of the world. They're going to be bringing that to the TV screen. So if you have a story to tell, you can be giving people selection to explore those carousels across when they're watching that sports content. So I think the way that they ended out the whole session was maybe the most important, while there was all these different releases of what's coming in 2025.
Speaker 2:The most important thing that I think was said was that they say, for the fireworks at the end was that emotional engagement is the most powerful currency of them all, and I think there's so much of this. While all this technology, the AI, is important, all of how all of this is optimized is important. The reach planning, the frequency, all of that is so important, but at the end of the day, people can't forget that what makes all of this technology fueled, powerful, meaningful to people is that ability, if we can really hit people on a different level, meet people where they are in their lives. People are watching these shows and movies during the best times of their lives, the worst times of their lives and to be able to meet them where they are, in their most trusted space, in their households often, is something that everyone should never lose sight of when they're creating their messaging strategy and how they're looking to build their brand.
Speaker 3:Love them or hate them. Nobody does it better than Disney. Yeah, it was great. I enjoyed it. Lots of great takeaways. I'm excited to dig in a little bit more as a team and see how we can leverage this for our clients.
Speaker 2:Excited to talk more, to dig in a little bit more as a team and see how we can leverage this for our clients. Excited to talk more 2025,. This was like a kickoff to what is going to be a very fast moving year, I think, for us, so we'll definitely stay on top of it Fun chatting with you, David.
Speaker 1:Talk to you soon you've been listening to fireside from campfire consulting. Join us again by the fire as we explore more ways to connect through media. Till next time, be responsibly different different.