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00:00Look at what happened in New York City with the Knicks. I mean, incredible, right?
00:03Like, everybody was a Knicks fan last Saturday night. It's incredible.
00:07People want to be a part of something.
00:18Some big brands to talk about all the trends.
00:21Rita, speaking of trends, we're going to talk about the focus on brand partnerships and storytelling.
00:26But real quick, we're about a month out of the upfront presentations.
00:32And that means in the United States where all the advertising, the buying and selling, the real wheeling and dealing
00:38of the upfront high level, how are you feeling?
00:42What are you learning about the marketplace from the negotiations that I know you've had in the last bunch of
00:47weeks?
00:48Yeah. So it's a great question because we've been very busy since May.
00:53We are almost done.
00:54And we have been, you know, as you know from our upfront presentation, this year we have the Super Bowl,
01:01the first time in 20 years, the first time I've actually gone to market with it in the U.S.
01:05We've had it internationally.
01:07And so, obviously, that makes it a very robust marketplace for us because there's a lot of interest.
01:13I would say more interest than supply available for that.
01:16But in general, I would say, you know, people are looking for sports.
01:19They're looking for streaming.
01:21They're looking for big live moments and big partnerships.
01:24It's no different than I would say most upfront conversations.
01:28You know, people want to make sure they're putting the right investments with the right media partners.
01:32But we're excited.
01:33And, you know, I think you'll see some news coming out shortly about where we are and how we feel
01:38about it.
01:39That's great.
01:39Thank you so much.
01:40We appreciate that pulse check.
01:42And, Disney, you were so ahead of the curve in talking live events, big cultural moments, and brand partnerships.
01:49At your event in May, where you showed off all of your new programming and plans for the coming year,
01:55you really touched on a lot of trends.
01:57And so, I would like to just get a sense of building on that as the things that folks are
02:02talking about here.
02:04How have you, with your brands are such natural fits, where have you found over the years that plugging in
02:12a Disney brand plus a cool thing going on at Target, some kind of promotion, some kind of in-store
02:19activity, where have you found that, like, one plus one can equal four or five or the conversions that you
02:27want and the impressions that you want?
02:29Does anything, as I ask that, anything jump to mind for you, Michelle?
02:33Yeah, I mean, Disney is an incredible partner to Target.
02:37We consider ourselves friends and colleagues, and we collaborate together all the time, day in and day out on our
02:42regular business, but also at special moments.
02:45And we were just talking about, we just did an exclusive drop at Target of Disney IP with Lego.
02:51So, what gets really fun is when we can come together and create new value for the consumer, but then
02:56you can also attach it to one more thing, right?
02:59So, Disney, Target, and Lego is really special.
03:02We're doing that on the regular in our business, and we are also doing that through something we call Saturday
03:09Spectaculars, which is in-store events.
03:11So, every Saturday at Target, you can come and experience something new, and Disney is a regular player in our
03:17activities at Target.
03:19Rita, from your perspective, what's been most effective?
03:22I think we do a lot around big premiere launches, so big movie launches.
03:26I remember when Taylor Swift and her concert came on to the Disney Plus platform.
03:31That was a big opportunity we worked on with Target.
03:33So, I would say every time you see a big movie launch, we tend to have big retail partnerships as
03:38part of that.
03:38And because of the massive licensing relationship we have with many brands that Target is a premier destination for them,
03:46that becomes a really interesting play for us.
03:49Because it's like Michelle said, you bring the brands with the IP and the distribution, that that's what consumers are
03:54looking for.
03:55It's interesting, too, Michelle, that you mention, like, that special moment in a person's life, somebody's birthday, you know, that
04:03you have that in common in the sense that, you know, people want to go to Disneyland, or they might
04:08give somebody a favorite movie for a birthday.
04:10And Target is a place where people are going to go and get, oh, I got that great gift, I'm
04:16going to get that sweater, I'm going to get that, you know, is that something that guides your marketing?
04:23Like, you want to be there for something that is going to be very personal in a person's life, rather
04:29than, you know, emphasizing, you know, price or value, those kinds of things.
04:33I'm trying to, we're trying to get at sort of how the marketing mindset, how the thinking about what you
04:39approach and when you do it, how that's changing in the attention economy world that we live in.
04:45It's a great question.
04:46And it's something we think about every day, honestly.
04:48And I would start with the fact that, probably not dissimilar from Rita and the Disney team, we think about
04:54Target and our brand as an experience.
04:56And that's where we start.
04:58So, the actual sales or that last click is the impact of what we create upstream.
05:04So, it's really important for us that we're thinking about our brand, the experience, the story we want to tell
05:09at any given time.
05:10It might be a big macro story, like the season.
05:13It might also be a micro story.
05:15But that's where we spend our time and energy.
05:18So, we have teams that are just focused on understanding what people are interested in, what new trends are coming,
05:23to make sure that we can show up for you every single day.
05:26Because, you know what, every single day there's special moments that happen and the big occasions as well.
05:31I hear you.
05:32Rita, let me ask you the same thing.
05:34How much is your team thinking about, oh, here's an opportunity around a holiday or an event or we have
05:43a big movie.
05:43I know you did a lot of stuff, a lot of great promotional stuff around The Devil Wears Prada 2,
05:49which was just a natural vehicle for you.
05:52How are you having to think about things differently?
05:55How are you having to bring new skills to the table as you try to deliver these, you know, much
06:02more elaborate, bespoke partnerships that really have impact on consumers?
06:07Yeah.
06:08Well, I'll use an example of an announcement we made yesterday with Flowcode, right?
06:12So, Flowcode is a company that uses QR codes to create experiences, Shopify, enhance experiences.
06:17And we did a partnership with them and with Publicis around college football and College Football Saturday.
06:24Yeah, a fairly passionate topic.
06:26A fairly passionate audience, too.
06:28Roll Tide.
06:29I'm sorry, I just had to say it.
06:30Roll Tide.
06:32I love that.
06:33And so, you know, you have thousands of fans that are on college campuses who show up every week, every
06:40single week, week after week, to experience it live.
06:43That's right.
06:44And yet, how many more are watching on TV that want to have that experience on site but can't be
06:50there?
06:50But we want to give them the opportunity to participate and receive promotions and offers and content and all kinds
06:57of enhanced experiences from the brands who are on site and present.
07:00And so, this will allow us to create those immersive platforms that allow us to really enhance the consumer experience,
07:06whether you're on site or on TV, and really take advantage of all of that.
07:10So, it's how do I make the brands feel more connected to the customer and the fan through experiences that
07:18they're already investing in but giving them more vehicles to touch.
07:23I love that.
07:24And I think, you know, what you are touching on, Rita, is we are moving from just an experience economy
07:29to it's definitely about experience, but the next click in is participation.
07:33And that's something that we are really studying at Target right now is people want to participate in their lives
07:39again, right?
07:39Everything is served up to us constantly.
07:41Things are automatic.
07:42They're almost too easy.
07:44And people want to participate in game day.
07:46They want to get behind, you know, Alabama.
07:48Exactly.
07:49Do their thing.
07:49Look at what happened in New York City with the Knicks.
07:51I mean, incredible, right?
07:53Like, everybody was a Knicks fan last Saturday night.
07:56It's incredible.
07:57People want to be a part of something.
07:58So, we are architecting into the moments that happen naturally in retail, but we're also finding fandom moments that we
08:05can orchestrate as well.
08:07And limited time only drops are a really big part of that equation for Target.
08:11When we drop in a collaboration like Roller Rabbit or Park, the fandom ignites, and people get to play, and
08:17they get to discover together.
08:20I mean, there's so many interesting things to explore.
08:23What is so interesting to me is that, obviously, you can plan.
08:27You know when a movie is coming out.
08:28You know when Valentine's Day is, you know, every year.
08:31But there's so many of these things like the Knicks, you know, which, again, us Americans cannot overstate how the
08:39Knicks became America's team.
08:41And I think America really needed the Knicks, you know.
08:44The Knicks needed America, and America needed the Knicks.
08:47But it really did.
08:48It was the kind of thing that drew us together, and that is sports at its best.
08:52But how do you, it just, I keep going back to, like, how do you translate these ideas into how
09:03do you measure it down?
09:05How do you measure your ROI?
09:07How do you measure your returns?
09:08Obviously, sales go up, great measure.
09:11But when you're, you know, when you're looking at the, when you're doing your campaign wrap-ups and things and
09:18trying to understand, like, what was the value of having something in this moment?
09:23And what I started to say was also, like, reaching those moments can be, it's, you've got a, it's, you've
09:30got a short window to get, to be activated.
09:32You probably have to be a lot more nimble to really grab onto a moment for something that can't be
09:38sort of pre-planned.
09:39Is that, is that something that is a challenge for you?
09:43Yeah.
09:43How we measure, and I'm super curious your thoughts as well, but we are talking a lot right now about
09:48how we move beyond just ROI to what we're calling return on relationships.
09:53Return on influence, return on experience.
09:57It's a longer tail.
09:58It's not as easy to measure, but the halo impact that then eventually brings the ROI is, like, incredible.
10:07It's absolutely incredible.
10:08And it pays dividends.
10:10And one experience, one example I might offer is last year, we made the decision to take over our Soho
10:19store in Target.
10:19So we're right, right in the heart of the fashion district in, I'm sorry, excuse me, in New York, in
10:24Soho.
10:26And we turned the store into a concept store.
10:28And it's actually a marketing store now.
10:31And it's our ability to actually, yes, we sell products, but it's our ability to try new things, experiment, tell
10:37stories in new ways.
10:39And it's been phenomenal, because not only is it a great place for us to showcase our brand, people want
10:44to come and play.
10:45So the Knicks, we had a really great relationship with Carl Anthony Towns, because he used to be at Timberwolves
10:51in Minneapolis, which is where we are based.
10:53And we reached out after they won.
10:55And we said, hey, any chance you want to swing by?
10:58And he said, absolutely.
10:59So we posted content yesterday of he and Jordan stopping by Soho, curating a little display for us, and posting
11:06content.
11:07And so we got in on the fandom in a really agile way, because we've taken the store kind of
11:11offline to make it a marketing store.
11:13That is so funny.
11:14And that's a perfect example of somebody on your team connected.
11:19Carl, you said he's from Minneapolis.
11:21I mean, that's just great.
11:23And that shows me that so much, not to suggest that it ever was formulaic, but the level of individual
11:31kind of brainstorm that can then bring to bear something that is seen, it's pretty incredible.
11:37Let me ask you, we could talk for another hour, but let me ask you about, I think it's interesting,
11:44because Disney touches so many consumers in so many ways.
11:47And you do have a big retail business, obviously, Target has a very big retail business.
11:53Do you ever share the inputs?
11:55You get so many consumer inputs, you can see what is trending in people's lives.
12:01And I'm sure there's so much data that you have and you have.
12:04Are you able to share data and get joint insights from the kind of unique touch that you have and
12:13you have?
12:14I'll start.
12:15Eric, we do that with many of our brand partners.
12:18We have, obviously, clean room integration set up with all of the major brands we work with and holding companies.
12:24And so many times, as part of the campaign partnerships, they bring their first party data, we bring our first
12:29party data and match it to do outcomes and target specific audience segments and really make sure that the content
12:35that's resonating with the right audience at the right time has a right ad in front of it, obviously.
12:40And that's especially true in live, where I think it's exactly what you were talking about.
12:45You have to be ready for the moment.
12:47You don't know when it's going to happen.
12:49But live allows you to create that spontaneity and that creative decision in real time.
12:55And so we've invested a lot in technology, obviously, with the size of live portfolio we have to make sure
13:00that we can take advantage of those moments where you can really drive resonance and results as part of putting
13:05the right at the right moment.
13:06And that is, I mean, that is truly, like, AI tools are doing it in a way that you could
13:12have a thousand people watching it.
13:13And knowing who our audience segment is, right?
13:15So when you have an audience graph the size that we do, that we've been investing in for a long
13:19time, that understands our audience across all of our business and can really tap into culture and the moments that
13:27are driving that conversation.
13:28Because, again, live drives culture conversation.
13:30It's not actually only the moment.
13:32It's what's happening before.
13:33People are preparing for the game.
13:35They're buying.
13:36They're going to tailgate together.
13:37It's community in the moment and then afterwards.
13:40Right.
13:40Because you know that when your team loses, you're thinking about that for the next week.
13:45When your team wins, you're on a high for a very long time.
13:48And that's a shared experience.
13:49You know it from your Buffalo Bills, right?
13:51Absolutely.
13:52Absolutely.
13:52I was going to show some restraint.
13:54But go Bills.
13:55Go Bills for the Super Bowl.
13:57Yes.
13:58But, again, what you're talking about, like, the game is so important to Disney and ESPN.
14:02And it's important to you as people go buy their chips and their dip.
14:06And it's really the way you two can thread.
14:08Let me ask you your perspective, Michelle, in terms of the data that you get.
14:13Are you able to kind of track consumer trends in a way that really helps you in your job in
14:19reaching more people?
14:21Absolutely.
14:22I mean, data is what powers our intelligence.
14:25And when we can come together and know that much more about the consumer or the shopper or our guest
14:31because of us coming together, it's incredible.
14:33And I think you use where we find the greatest success is with a brand like Disney or any other
14:39brand or just in our daily business is when we are using that intelligence, then that's fueling creativity.
14:44So it's a combination of the data and intelligence and the human capital of imagining what could be.
14:51What's the next idea?
14:52So the combo is the two is where we see the power.
14:56Absolutely.
14:58In our waning minutes here, last question, what would you say in terms of either tools or metrics?
15:05I know we've been talking about trends, but a tool or a metric that has really been a game changer
15:11for you that didn't even exist five years ago.
15:15Anything jump to mind?
15:17I mean, for us, it's been just the optimization of our algorithms that allow us to do much more in
15:23real time and service a volume of marketers that we would never have been able to do as a direct.
15:28Right.
15:28Right.
15:28So the growth and explosion of automation in our business allows us to service a marketplace better, faster and with
15:34better results.
15:36Pretty good.
15:37I would say on top of that, one thing that we have been playing around with is synthetic testing.
15:42So synthetic audience testing.
15:44And it's pretty tremendous.
15:46It is the insights that you can gather is pretty unbelievable.
15:50And what we love about it is the rapid speed in which you can test and get a response and
15:56be able to make a decision and move forward.
15:58So is that, forgive me, that's like based on inputs from consumers and then you can sort of use some
16:04tools to extrapolate from there.
16:06When you say synthetic, I'm trying to understand what that is.
16:09It's generative AI.
16:10So it's basically doing synthetic audience testing.
16:13So audience lookalike, but the speed in which you're able to do it and the detailed type of information that
16:20you get back is pretty incredible.
16:21Yeah, that is amazing.
16:23So many frontiers.
16:25Thank you so much.
16:26Thank you, Rita.
16:26Thank you, Michelle.
16:27Thank you, audience, for sticking with us.
16:29We so appreciate it.
16:30Hope you enjoyed it.
16:31There is much more to come from Variety and Canva today.
16:36Thank you so much.