Disney is using the Consumer and Electronics Show in Las Vegas to demonstrate its data and programmatic prowess to media buyers in advance of the upfronts.
Hey, it’s never too early to start planning.
On Monday, Disney released a new ad product called Disney Compass designed to give buyers quicker and more direct access to Disney data in addition to data from Disney’s identity and measurement partners.
Having to buy, plan and measure through multiple vendors is too fragmented, said Nick Winfrey, Disney’s director of data science and strategy, and data fragmentation is a time suck for advertisers.
“[We] needed a lot more interoperability between data systems,” Winfrey told AdExchanger, which requires building collaborative product road maps with partners.
At launch, Disney Compass is compatible with a handful of vendors, including VideoAmp, Affinity Solutions, LiveRamp and Snowflake. But the plan is for the product to work with any identity and measurement vendor, Winfrey said, adding that Disney expects to sign new data partners for Disney Compass in the near future.
Disney’s data direction
Typically, every new data partner a buyer uses adds another hop in the planning-to-measurement pipeline, creating “disparate views” across data vendors, Winfrey said.
The result is “swivel-chair automation,” he said, as in marketers having to corral data across multiple dashboards, each with its own automated process – which is very time consuming. Sometimes, insights take so long to generate, a campaign is already over by the time they’re ready.
This problem is what Disney seeks to address with Disney Compass, which also provides buyers access to Disney Campaign Manager (previously known as Hulu Ad Manager).
Using Disney Compass, buyers can immediately generate reports from different data vendors to compare reach across multiple campaigns over the same time period and shift budgets around as needed, Winfrey said. The tool should also give buyers a better understanding of reach curves, which help determine the ideal time, place and audience target for ad delivery, he said.
By reducing the amount of time it takes to generate an audience plan and compare results across data sources, buyers can optimize their campaigns in time to meet their goals, Winfrey said, whether that be incremental reach or return on ad spend.
Being more efficient also helps brands justify their marketing efforts to the C-suite, which in turn should help Disney generate more ad spend among existing customers and attract new ones, Winfrey said.
Currently, Disney Compass is in beta and available to a select handful of advertisers and media buyers for early feedback, with plans to make it generally available later this year.
Disney will share more updates on its data and advertising road map during its fifth annual Tech and Data Showcase at CES in Las Vegas on Wednesday. AdExchanger will be there, so stay tuned.
