Sees Significant Growth and Meaningful Impact Across Multicultural, Multi-year Deals and Women’s Sports Sponsorships
Disney Advertising completed its 2024-25 Upfront with record commitments across its core priority pillars, with strength in sports and streaming. The rapid growth and global expansion of ad-supported Disney+, along with the largest portfolio of sports rights, supported growth in advertiser volume. Further increases came from existing client and holding company relationships, in addition to unlocked demand across new categories of advertisers and expanded relationships. Momentum stemmed from multi-year deals, growth in women’s sports sponsorships, multicultural partnerships and investments from independent agencies.
Disney’s unrivaled position as the leader in storytelling, data and ad technology and audiences at scale, defined this year’s strategic negotiations with partners looking to drive the strongest outcomes and broadest reach across our portfolio of brands and platforms.
Highlights Include:
-Overall revenue and volume are up +5% year over year.
-More than 40% of total Upfront dollars committed this year are addressable budgets, inclusive of streaming and digital.
-All Addressable deals today are data-enabled, with use of Disney’s rich, first-party data growing 181% YoY.
-Nearly 60% of all data-enabled deals are leveraging Disney’s first-party insights.
-Performance marketing deals are up 19%.
-Streaming and Sports are both up double-digits in volume.
-Sports multiyear deals – up mid double-digits – reflect ESPN’s commitment to delivering fans the best sports coverage across all screens and platforms. Inclusive of women’s sports commitments, up triple-digits vs last year’s upfront, and representing the strength of women’s sports coverage across the entire Disney portfolio.
-Streaming volume saw an increase of 10% compared to the prior year, across Hulu and Disney+.
- The Company introduced Disney Streaming Entertainment (DSE) packaging a unified inventory offering across Disney’s family of streaming apps, to maximize supply and match advertiser demands against premium audiences and outcomes.
- This bundled opportunity provides flexibility of impression delivery and ability to maximize client opportunities regardless of where and how audiences watch.
- Disney XP- another complementary ad offering that includes our addressable and streaming inventory spanning all of this, launched four years ago as a similar offering to maximize audiences and reach across our full content portfolio and see meaningful adoption across partners that continues.
-Multicultural commitments, up 15% and reflective of all major holding companies spending intentionally around diverse audiences, inclusive of advertisers across all major categories including automotive, tech and telco.
-Strong demand for innovative and non-traditional ad formats, including new shoppable integrations, advergaming, Disney’s Magic Words, and social extensions.
-As we continue to expand Disney+ with ads around the world, and following the successful launches across EMEA and Latam, we’re extending partner opportunities across those regions.
-Categories that performed well for the 2024-25 Upfront include international auto, beverages, food, personal care; financial services; healthcare and travel – specifically hotels and vacation rentals; and restaurants – led by quick service restaurants (QSR).
“Disney’s unrivaled storytelling paired with our unparalleled ad technology and data capabilities delivers the outcomes our partners continue to push us on, and we continue to raise the bar,” said Rita Ferro, President, Global Advertising, Disney. “Our growth in the number of marketers we work with and the increased investments in advertising innovation, demonstrates Disney’s differentiator. As we double down on our commitment to world-class storytelling, automation, and new ad products, demonstrating growth for partners underpins our focus for the future.”