Walt Disney Co. has a new suite of advanced advertising offerings called Luminate, which spans the entire portfolio of linear networks, digital experiences and social executions across ABC, ESPN, Freeform and the Disney Channels. Luminate will use ESPN\u2019s LiveConnect as a launch pad of sorts for other live events across the Disney portfolio and better enable the company to \u201cspeak to advertisers with one voice,\u201d says Josh Mattison, VP, Advertising Sales, Disney Digital Network.<\/p>\n
Luminate is managed by Laura Nelson, SVP, Audience Solutions, Disney|ABC Advertising Sales and Marketing, and ESPN\u2019s Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer and Ad Platforms.<\/p>\n
The suite is powered by linear optimization, digital audience guarantees, digital private marketplace (programmatic) and attribution studies to quantify advertiser return on investment. Within the new unit, LiveConnect will now be used “to explore ways to extend to live events across the entire Disney portfolio,” the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
In this interview with Beet.TV last week at Disney\u2019s NewFront<\/a> event, Mattison explains the expected influence that Luminate is expected to have.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question people recognize Disney and Disney\u2019s content prowess across all the various IP, but as a data and data informed audience solution partner it\u2019s not something that we\u2019ve been very public about in the past,\u201d Mattison says. \u201cBut if you look at what we\u2019ve set up with Disney\/ABC\u2019s Luminate, it really is a framework that\u2019s going to apply to all of our environments.\u201d<\/p>\n Those environments range from pure digital into longer-form venues like Hulu and YouTube TV. \u201cSo it is truly a suite of solutions that span all of Disney ABC for advanced audience targeting,\u201d Mattison<\/a> says.<\/p>\n BlueKai is Disney\u2019s current DMP and \u201cLiveRamp has also been a fantastic partner. We\u2019ve been able to do data matching and then do either hyper targeting or negative targeting, where we exclude certain people because they might already be customers of an advertiser.\u201d<\/p>\n Luminate will help to enhance the existing sales ethos at Disney.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we come into a room with an advertising partner, we do so with all of our assets. So in the room is Good Morning America. In the room is American Idol,\u201d says Mattison. \u201cThe second is you can see partnerships that will span multiple assets. You can go all the way from being a theatrical movie partner to having integrations into one of our ABC shows, into the Disney Digital Network and using creators or influencers as a layer in that program.\u201d<\/p>\n