Disney on Wednesday debuted new tech for advertisers, including an AI video generation tool for ad creative and a new holistic brand impact measurement approach and metric.
They are among new innovations highlighted at Disney’s annual Tech & Data Showcase coinciding with CES in Las Vegas.
One of the efforts aims to connect the measurement dots for CTV advertisers and provide a better understanding of how (and which) different KPIs come together to drive brand impact and outcomes for brand campaigns on Disney platforms, with a more holistic view.
Dubbed Disney Advertising Brand Impact Metric, the media company said it unifies years’ worth of outcome- and performance-based insights and is purpose-built “to show the halo effect” when brand building and performance channels work together.
It combines insights from existing measurement partners and Disney’s own first party data. And the new advertiser-focused metric from Disney is meant to bridge understanding of upper funnel awareness and action-oriented KPIs.
And it unifies common KPIs that Disney said are key to understanding campaign effectiveness, including the following:
Attention: To demonstrate the value of leaned-in premium content and show the connection between buzzy content and brand recognition
Reach: Showing the impact of incremental audiences and frequency
Brand health: Proving brand metrics drong long-term value such as awareness, consideration and favorability
Search: Connecting the dots between brand metrics and performance outcomes to show how TV ads drive search behaviors (where historically, TV hasn’t always gotten that credit even if a TV ad is what prompted a viewer’s interest and search for a product)
Attribution: Attributing the value of actions taken by consumers, including visits and purchases
The metric is meant to give a combined view so that brands can see what’s working but also understand why – and optimize while campaigns are live, such as measuring the impact of attention and search activity on outcomes.
The latest tech from Disney speaks to the continued trend of CTV publishers working to make the medium a more full-funnel vehicle for advertisers and brands seeking more measurable results from their TV media investments, where an emphasis on advertiser outcomes has also come into focus.
To learn more about how Disney’s utilizing new interactive CTV ad formats to drive brand results at different stages of the marketing funnel check out our deep-dive special report on the topic here.
“More than ever, marketers need a better bridge between brand building and performance, and data can serve as the insight layer across campaigns and tactics,” said Dana McGraw, SVP of Data and Measurement Science at Disney. “When brands can connect ad exposure to direct results, marketers gain clarity on not just what drove results – but how. The vision of the Disney Advertising Brand Impact Metric is to connect all pieces of the measurement puzzle in a single metric for advertisers to get a total view of what matters.”
Alongside new metrics and measurement, Disney also unveiled an agentic AI campaign planning tool for advertisers. On the ad creative front, Disney announced a new video generation tool designed for advertisers that lets brands create high-quality, CTV-ready commercials using existing brand assets and guidelines.
It supports video ad creative versioning to optimize by audience, context and placement, and is informed by performance signals within the spot. Some the of the contextual signals that help shape the AI generated creative to increase relevancy include aspects like objective, audience, geotargets and tone, according to Disney Advertising SVP Jamie Power.
This capability could help produce more personalized, targeted ad creative for viewers on Disney streaming platforms. It could also mean a lower barrier to entry for smaller brands or new-to-TV-advertisers that historically may not have had the means to create TV-ready video ad creative.
This factor was mentioned on stage by Disney exec Tony Donohoe who noted that all too often in self-serve platforms “customers abandon the campaign build when it comes time to provide assets. They tell us about not having the time, expertise or resources to make it happen.”
To that end, “we’re bringing the power of generative video into our platform enabling customers of any size to reach fans of any stripe,” he said.
And Disney claims the new tool isn’t about volume but instead “helping creative work harder inside Disney environments.”
And while Power noted brand partners could create two or ten spots depending on goals, execs also emphasized that it “isn’t just an AI model creating a clip.”
“The magic is in the work we are doing under the hood,” Donohoe said. “Bringing Disney’s blend of technical, creative and operational experience as we build an AI capability with human oversight and imagination.”