Last week, executives at The Walt Disney Co. were still riding high from this year’s Oscars telecast. Final numbers from Nielsen revealed that the show averaged 19.7 million viewers, perhaps not the ratings bonanza from a decade go, but numbers that put the awards show in elite company with only the NFL.
John Campbell, senior VP of streaming brand solutions for Disney, also notes that the “Oscars, for the first time ever, outperformed both the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl in terms of social conversations.”
Live event tentpoles have been a staple of media and entertainment companies practically since the beginning, but in recent years companies have honed in on a new strategy: One in which live events are the tentpole, the flagship, but also a starting point to build out a wider array of advertising offerings across linear TV, streaming, digital platforms and social media.
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Perhaps no company has been more aggressive in that push than Disney, where executives are already salivating for a 2027 that will kick off with the College Football Championship, the Grammys, the Super Bowl and the Oscars all within a three month window.
“What we’ve instituted and implemented is a content everywhere strategy,” Campbell says. “The three things that we continue to hear consistently from CMOs is they want a return to content, they come to Disney to help maximize these big moments, and then ‘bring me your live tentpoles,’ because they want to actively join those cultural conversations.
“[CMOs] don’t want to end the conversation with the live event. The live event drives the entire ecosystem,” adds Danielle brown, senior VP of sports brand solutions for Disney.
And advertisers are buying in.
This month will see the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament return to ESPN after shattering ratings records a year ago. Brown says the championship game sold out months ago at rates that are comparable to NFL games, and that overall tournament ad sales are pacing nearly 200 percent above last year, an enormous increase at a moment where the overall ad business is still embracing a certain amount of austerity.
“That sell out is just so much earlier for these live specials because of the scarcity of it and live overall that brands — whether it’s in the upfront or well in advance of the air dates — really want to make sure that they’re there in a meaningful way,” Campbell says.
And in the wake of the Oscars, Disney is finding ways to further cash in. The big winner of the show was Sean Baker’s Anora, which took home six Oscars, including for best picture. The film will stream on Hulu later this month, just weeks after the nearly 20 million TV viewers watched its big night in real-time.
“We’re creating packages for a Anora right now that brands are looking to get a part of, based on the six wins that Anora had, and then all the social conversation which they’re going to take advantage of for the next few weeks,” Campbell says of Disney’s plans. “That’s the everywhere approach, and that’s really something only Disney can do because of the breadth and the scale of our platforms.”
Live events like the Oscars, or for that matter the College Football Playoff or the women’s college basketball tourney are no longer just live events to sell, they are events to build a slate of offerings around, feeding the larger beast.
“It starts off with the nominations, and then once those nominations are out, we see a flood of engagement on our streaming platforms trying to catch up with the films,” Campbell says, noting that Hulu has been a beneficiary. “So we create packages in order to be able to take advantage of that, what we call catch up.”
“When we’re thinking about the college football playoff as an example, we’re ensuring that we’re talking to marketers and agencies about how can you extend that reach and reach consumers across our entire portfolio, incrementality being a key piece of that because there are social users that might not be watching on linear,” says Brown.
And there will be more live events than ever coming down the pipe, with Disney working to create sponsorable moments like the “Summer of Music,” combining festivals like Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits with things like the GMA Summer Concert Series and Dancing with the Stars, which will live on both linear and streaming.
At ESPN, a landmark deal reached with the NCAA last year locked in not only the women’s basketball tournament, but essentially all other NCAA rights outside football and basketball. The company now plans to use those rights to elevate women’s sports like volleyball, softball and gymnastics, while feeding a desire by marketers looking to increase their spend in that area.
“What I love about like gymnastics as an example, is there’s a platform for these amazing athletes to still get their well-deserved shine, even in non Olympic years,” Brown says.
Interactivity is a piece of that puzzle too.
Brown says that ESPN’s March Madness tournament bracket is sold out, with marketers seeking more engaging options to reach fans. It is something the company is particularly focused on ahead of the ESPN “flagship” streaming launch later this year, which is expected to lean into interactive features and customizable content.
“We’ve had some renewed sponsors as well as new sponsors,” Brown says. “So people want to get in the game when it comes to interactivity and engagement with fans and fantasy and our bracket definitely drives a lot of that.”
