Disney boosts post-cookie offering with major Trade Desk integration

Dive Brief:

Disney Advertising and The Trade Desk have expanded their partnership to integrate Disney's Audience Graph with Unified ID 2.0 using Disney's Clean Room technology, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.
The first-of-its-kind integration will allow advertisers to activate their first-party data against Disney's content, providing buyers with flexibility, choice and control over premium inventory. More than 40 clients and most major agencies across all major categories have engaged with clean room strategies in collaboration with Disney's use of its Audience Graph.
Disney Advertising will implement this expanded capability over the next several months as it looks to support interoperability across all demand partners and platforms. The deal is a major step in boosting Unified ID 2.0 as a key identifier on the post-cookie landscape.

Dive Insight:

Disney's expanded deal with The Trade Desk — first struck at Cannes but just finalized, per details shared with Marketing Dive — connects Disney's proprietary Audience Graph and Clean Room technology with Unified ID 2.0, the third-party cookie alternative that The Trade Desk created. The deal is a major move in the entertainment giant's plans to boost programmatic, addressability and interoperability in its advertising ecosystem.

"We have spent years investing in our data and technology strategy to create innovative solutions for advertisers to engage their audiences with greater precision and accuracy in a privacy-focused way. This first-to-market capability sets the stage to empower access to the Disney portfolio, validated by powerful audience insights, in a way that’s automated and accessible," said Rita Ferro, Disney's president of ad sales, in a statement.

The deal enables greater interoperability in the programmatic landscape, helps improve audience activation and measurement and allows advertisers to activate first-party data in biddable environments — imperatives for advertisers preparing for Google's deprecation of third-party cookies.

"Advertisers will be able to deliver relevant advertising, while ensuring consumers have more control of their own privacy" as a result of the deal, said Tim Sims, chief revenue officer at The Trade Desk, in a statement.

By expanding its relationship with The Trade Desk and integrating its Audience Graph with Unified ID 2.0, Disney is making a major bet on an alternative ID that had gained momentum in the ad industry but still faces a marketer knowledge gap. While preparing for the cookieless future is a top priority for a majority of marketers, there is still no consensus on what tactics will be most prominent in that landscape.

The move to increase automation in its advertising comes in advance of Disney's plans to add an ad-supported tier to its Disney+ streaming service. Netflix is also working to add advertising to its platform as it looks to stay competitive in a streaming TV landscape in flux.