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Disney+ and Hulu CTV ad inventory will be available via Google and The Trade Desk
Source: eMarketer
March 21st, 2024
Summary: Disney is making it easier for advertisers to buy its streaming ad inventory directly through the industry's two largest demand-side platforms (DSPs), The Trade Desk and Google DV360. The House of Mouse will connect the Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX) directly to the DSPs as it tries to make half of its inventory available through targetable, automated mechanisms by the end of the year. It’s calling the solution “DRAX Direct”. Providing a more direct, automated path to its streaming inventory enables a higher match rate between their first-party data and an advertiser’s data, and more transparency into available inventory, audiences, and deduplicated reach and frequency reporting. While DRAX Direct gives Disney more direct access to demand via the two largest DSPs, Disney also continues to partner with smaller DSPs and the variety of advertisers they work with via its SSP partnerships. In fact, Disney says it doesn't expect DRAX Direct to cannibalize demand from SSPs (yeah, sure, okay). Partnering with The Trade Desk and DV360 will also enable Disney to test their respective cookieless data-matching solutions, including Google PAIR and The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0. Interestingly enough, Disney also has direct integration with the industry’s leading independent SSP, Magnite, through its ClearLine solution, to offer its inventory to advertisers without having to use a DSP.
Media companies are increasingly forging direct relationships with ad platforms as Google moves forward with its plan to deprecate third-party cookies and streaming continues to grow. NBCUniversal also announced a partnership with The Trade Desk last week that will, for the first time, make some of its Paris Olympic Games ad inventory available programmatically. The Trade Desk will build a private marketplace for NBCU's Olympics inventory as the programmer continues to increase programmatic access, which drove a 40% increase in advertisers last year. Currently, NBCU sells more than 30% of its Peacock inventory programmatically.
Opinion: Major streaming publishers are realizing that they have tons of leverage and are starting to cut out the middlemen, namely SSPs and DSPs.
Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane. In the early days of web advertising, publishers sold their inventory directly to advertisers and had tons of leverage. But as the web proliferated and ad tech companies started utilizing cookies to offer targeted reach to advertisers across many thousands of websites, publishers lost their leverage. Now, as cookies go away (which diminishes the value that ad tech provides) and streaming emerges (a medium in which only a select few publishers truly matter), these publishers are wrestling their leverage back by getting closer to the demand once again. As they should!
Disney continues to lead the way in forging partnerships with ad tech companies in a manner that drives maximum demand for their inventory and data.
Overall, this is positive for the industry. Ad tech fragmentation is rampant, and it has become clear that many players provide little to no incremental value. Great publishers getting closer to the money and forcing some tech consolidation would be welcomed. It would make life a little easier for both buyers and sellers, and everyone creating real value would make more money. That’d be nice, right?
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