Omnicom Media and Disney Advertising collaborate to enable sequential ads in streaming

One key element to this is the ability for Omnicom and Disney to insert the sequential messaging not only into premade entertainment, but live programming as well. “If you’re watching a game, you’re basically just sitting for three hours, and that’s where the repetition thing is really problematic,” said Joanna O’Connell, chief intelligence officer for Omnicom Media North America. According to research O’Connell and team made to understand consumer frustrations with watching streaming programming, “That’s the 61% that get really frustrated when they see the same ad, and multiple times more than four times during a single sitting. 

Two Omnicom clients, including The Home Depot and State Fam insurance, are being placed into Disney’s premium streaming inventory, with Disney’s identity graph matched to Omnicom’s Acxiom identity solution, and operating platform Omni’s video content measurement capabilities. Innovid’s creative sequencing technology is then used to deliver sequentially creative 15-, 30-, and 60-second ads that build on one another during a single viewing session.

Megan Pagliuca, chief product officer for Omnicom Media, pointed to the measurement innovation, brought about by advances in multi-party clean room tech (that lets Acxiom data and Disney data connect with each other), as another essential part of this agreement. “It is a unique piece in the ecosystem,” she said, “so we can share those insights with Alissa [Hansen, CEO of Omnicom Production North America] and the creative teams for better creative production.”

Speed is also essential to getting messaging into live content, said Hansen. “You have to travel content very quickly to its intended audience, and that’s where Innovid comes in really well, because it does a few things for us — it does the decisioning, and it does the asset trafficking, and ultimately it does the optimization,” she explained.

Here’s where having Acxiom in the flow of audience discovery is key to the collaboration with Disney (and other streamers that Omnicom is striking partnerships with), said Keith Camoosa, Acxiom’s chief product and technology innovation officer. “The Acxiom connectivity allows for the strategic planning to include Disney,” he said. “And that’s one of the key audience benefits for Acxiom, to be able to take client first party data where it exists, or other strategic audiences, and to see what the relationship is between those people and media partners like Disney.” 

The immediacy of the audience recognition and ability to act on it is what drew The Home Depot to this collaboration. “Live sports and entertainment create some of the most emotionally engaged moments in media today,” said Allison Kolber, vp of integrated marketing at the hardware chain. “This solution gives brands the ability to respond to those moments in ways that feel authentic, relevant, and aligned with how audiences are feeling in real time.” 

And for Disney, of course, trying avoid excessive repetition of ads can only be a good thing — even though the Omnicom Media research showed consumers tend to blame the brand more than the platform. “As streaming technology continues to advance, brands have new opportunities to tell stories that evolve with each impression,” said Jamie Power, svp of addressable sales, Disney. “Rather than delivering the same message repeatedly, advertisers can use each exposure to build on a narrative, introduce new ideas, and deepen consumer engagement. That’s a fundamentally more powerful approach to storytelling and one that creates more value for both consumers and marketers.”

Advertisers “want to mitigate that risk of overexposure to a single message, so they’re using this capability to say, ‘Okay, the user’s already seen this twice in one sitting, let’s bring in another message,’ so that we’re providing some of that variation,” added Keagan McDonnell, head of partner innovation and strategic initiatives at OM North America. 

Omnicom Media announced a similar partnership with Netflix yesterday as part of its Cannes Lions mission.