Walt Disney Company President of Advertising Sales & Partnerships Rita Ferro discussed the current environment around advertising in sports yesterday during SBJ and Leaders' Media Innovators virtual series. Ferro addressed the potential impact the election could have on advertising: “Ultimately, people look at sports, and advertisers look at sports, as a way to escape and be able to have a moment of an advertising message not be tied necessarily to everything going on. And yet, at the same time, I think the conversation around social unrest pervasively impacted sports.” She believes advertisers want to be a part of the "movement to drive real change." Ferro: "People want to be relevant in culture, and they want to be able to understand that as brands, we engage in a cultural conversation to be able to really impact their consumers." Ferro acknowledged some sports have seen viewership declines this year and said, “We sell guaranteed audience reach. So, I think it definitely is an issue. … Sports is still delivering significant audiences. So, I think the advertisers understand that and continue to want to be there."
Quick Hits:
*On brands being innovative: “We've had some brands who really pushed us hard. State Farm is a great example, where we did that commercial at 'The Last Dance.' … Some advertisers are really pushing us to think differently and creatively about how we can create different types of brand messages that feel fun and may not be something they would normally test in the same way had things been normal.”
*On balancing streaming vs linear: “A lot of people have talked about migrating messaging and advertising to different platforms. You really saw a movement in that over the last eight months because people just wanted to consume content, as much content anywhere. The advertisers now understand they have to be wherever they're consuming that content to actually deliver the messages.”
*On whether there was too much sports at one time: “You could say there was a lot in a very short period of time. I would say there was never too much sports: sports fans were dying to watch sports coming back and there was definitely some excitement around that.”
