Disney has announced that it will begin to roll out aspects of Hulu’s ad-targeting capabilities to Disney+.
The entertainment giant launched its Disney+ ad-supported tier last December but advertisers could not target ads to specific audiences.
However, in April the brand will implement Disney-owned Hulu ad targeting services into Disney+, giving advertisers access to a ‘full suite of ad products and services’.
Disney Advertising president Rita Ferro told Digiday that the new ad tech will include “some of the basic stuff: age, gender, some geo-targeting, and then the full suite of targeting in July.”
The increased ad-targeting suite will reportedly include the 2,000 audience segments available through the Disney Select first-party data platform, which reaches 235 million monthly unique visitors in the US alone.
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest marketing campaigns sent straight to your inbox each morning
The extension of Hulu’s ad services to Disney+ comes as part of a bid to ‘unify’ the company’s ad technology operations. According to Ferro, Disney wishes to automate 50% of its ad sales and is on target to do so this year.
“We’re at 35% right now, and that’s before the full integration of all of these [ad products and services from Hulu],” she told Digiday.
The news comes as many streaming platforms continue to fight for subscribers by implementing cheaper subscription ad-tiers. Last year, Netflix launched its ad-tier a month before Disney+ (November).
“The unique thing that I think is different for Disney than Netflix in this particular situation is we have a whole streaming ecosystem beyond Disney+, so we’re able to manage that much more holistically,” Ferro added.
