Rita Ferro on Disney’s advertising strategy and competing with Big Tech

Speaker 0 · 0:00

So today, I have the pleasure of sitting here with, Rita Ferro, who's the president of global advertising for the Walt Disney Company. Rita, it's always a pleasure to do this. How are you doing? Likewise, Justin. Good. How are you? Good. Good. Hot and sweaty as always in Canada. It seems to be hotter every year, doesn't it? This year is hotter. For sure, there's no question this year is hotter. But air conditioned room, so we we can't we can't complain. So I did watch your upfronts, and and it was really interesting because when you look at the narrative that's going around the world in in television, actually, you you followed a lot of those lines. Right? You talked about trust, fandom, and, obviously, you always have a big innovation and sort of a data and tech component to it. But first question, when you look at that, do you is this the most competitive landscape that you you've ever found yourself in?

Speaker 1 · 0:43

I would say yes. I would say yes for a couple of reasons. One is I don't think the velocity of the business is getting any slower. In fact, if anything, it's accelerating, and it's accelerating in multiple ways around content and content that resonates, around scale and having the scale and reach of platforms, around technology that enables advertisers to buy however they want to, whether that's direct, through automation Yeah. Through whatever platform they choose, and around measurement, which we still have a lot of work to do as an industry around measuring the outcomes and impact of all of the business. So for sure, it's super competitive. I love our position, obviously, because we don't question the ability to have incredibly engaged audiences and scale. We talk about trust. Yes. We have trust. I mean, when you think of the brands that we represent as a portfolio, number one brand in sports, more hours in sports, women's sports, any any way you slice it. Mhmm. Big live events. Live is driving a lot of the engagement around platforms, whether they're linear or streaming platforms. And then brands that resonate with with audiences. Right? National Geographic, ESPN, Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, ABC, all brands that, you know, audiences love and brands feel great about being partners with. So, you know, when we talk about when we talk about the trust here, and,

Speaker 0 · 2:02

we're gonna it it's been it's it's a major element because there's so much inventory out there separating what's quality and what isn't, and trust is becoming one of them. And, do you think that we sort of undervalue it and we've gotta do probably a little bit more work with clients to for them to understand what that means and how it actually improves effectiveness.

Speaker 1 · 2:21

Yeah. I think there's two ways to look at that. I definitely think there are brands who value trust and incredible quality content and quality environment, and you see that in the amount of multiyear deals that people wanna do with our company. Yeah. We have over 70 now, mostly anchored in sports. Because of the scale and growth of sports, it continues to be a, you know, rocket ship to up into the right in terms of audience growth, opportunity, engagement, fan fan engagement, as well as brand opportunity and brand engagement. So there's no question there. But there's still a marketplace, and I'm I'm fascinated by the continued growth of platforms who are diving on price, because they have the scale to do so. And it's not always video, but but, again, they they compete in a different space and brands, you know, have a tremendous amount of pressure. We're all very focused on the quarter, the quarter, the quarter. And there's brands who wanna make sure that they're delivering, and there's impressions that you can buy at very reasonable CPMs, I would say. Do they drive the outcomes that all brands are looking for? I'm not sure. Mhmm. But I think ours also the media mix models that brands are using to measure value, need to adapt to a marketplace reality. And I don't know that they haven't. So I think there's a lot everybody's dealing with a lot of pressure, a lot of noise, I would say, in the marketplace, and a lot of,

Speaker 0 · 3:38

opportunity that gets created by some of these platforms. And I think over time, you're gonna see the cream rise to the top Mhmm. And a lot of these things fall out. But it's gonna be a little bit of a bumpy ride in the next couple of months and years. Yeah. So how do you compete with that? Because this is part of our major challenge. It's unlimited impressions Yeah. And then price. Then you mentioned the MMMs. Yeah. The easiest way to manipulate an so they are typically based on ROI Yeah. Is cost. Yeah. So are you saying as media, you're providing, obviously, a quality inventory source, data outcomes,

Speaker 1 · 4:08

don't lower your prices, don't compete on price. Is that what you're saying? We have the luxury that we don't have to compete. I mean, obviously, we have to compete on value. Do you sell out? We are mostly sold out Okay. Of most of our impressions across all of our platforms. Yeah. Again, because of the incredible premium value of storytelling that we have, but also around the capabilities we've built and honed over years. Yeah. Right? We have an ID graph that allows people to leverage first party data in a privacy compliant way, and you can actually really drive outcomes at a level that is far more targeted than many other platforms. Yeah. But at the same time, we've invested in the quality storytelling that we know resonates well. Right? And we've really anchored in live across both sports and entertainment because we know that's a big driver of value. Not only value from a brand's perspective, value from an audience perspective, but also how we package the full portfolio. And yet, at the end of the day, you know, we continue to have the need to drive growth and opportunity. And so how do we transform? What does that mean in terms of advertising experiences, new monetization models, experiences of, yes, video is important, but what other experiences? Right? Commerce, search, the ability to gamify things, all of those things coming together. You know, Josh talked about, at our earnings and also at our upfront, you know, Disney plus being almost a front door into the company. Yes. We're working on the product and innovation to allow that to happen. That will only allow brands more opportunity to bring that all together. Mhmm. But it is going to be, I think, from a marketplace perspective, hard as brands to figure out where are the right places. I do think when economies get tough, brands figure out how to do more with fewer. Mhmm. We're always one of those Yeah. That turns to be the more with with fewer. Yeah. And that's because we have incredible relationships in the market, and we've proven ourselves. Yeah. We've continually proven ourselves, and we continue to invest in the things that matter. Do you think it's a healthy marketplace? Because when you look at some of the overarching stats, you know, 90% of meet new media spends go into three companies. Mhmm.

Speaker 0 · 6:02

Is that is that is that a good situation to be in? It's not a good situation. Do about that? It's not a good situation. I think

Speaker 1 · 6:08

there's a couple of things. There's a agency ecosystem that's changing. You're seeing a lot of consolidation of these big players. Yeah. That is going to change how and what they want and and set expectations in the marketplace. There's a massive growth in that mid market ad advertiser tier. Yeah. And when I talk mid I'm not talking long tail. I'm talking call it advertiser one zero one to 1,000 who, if you look at their spend levels, the top 100 advertisers are about 30% of the market. These guys are about 50% of the market. And then the long tail, which is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of advertisers, is a much smaller percentage. That middle one, they call them felt in The UK. Fat end of the long tail.

Speaker 0 · 6:49

Interesting. I've never heard that term either. Love that. It's it's basically I I call them I call it the messy middle. Yeah. So it's like, it's it's it's brands that are typically if you go around the world, they're domestic brands. Yeah. They're big enough to advertise on telly. That's right. Right? They've got the budget for it, but they grew up in digital. That's right. So they're used to digital metrics, feedback loops. Yeah. Or they're regional, but regional now is Well, regional, they're massive. Right? You could be just California and it'd be absolutely enormous. That's right. Are you saying that's the growth engine? That's a big growth engine for us. Right? Obviously, you can imagine the top 100 advertisers,

Speaker 1 · 7:19

they're all working with us. Big opportunity for us to continue to invest and grow and and build on those partnerships. But as as I say all the time, as the business gets better and more effective, we're doing it to ourselves. We're building platforms that are better at measurement, better at targeting, better at identifying how we drive results for partners Mhmm. We're gonna need to bring more brands in. Yeah. And those brands are the ones who are spending growth dollars. Right? And so we have to spend and and really think about how do you service a client like that. Yeah. Does it have to be direct? Does it not have to be direct? What are those agencies? Because there's probably 1,200 agencies that service those clients. Yeah. Yeah. They're across the country. How do you make sure that you're servicing them the same way we would service another guy? Not the same way in terms of I show up every day, but the same way in terms of the value we provide, the insights we provide, the enablement we provide of how they do their business. They're a lot more, as you said, tech savvy. They like self-service. Yeah. They wanna be able to so, like, all of those tools to make sure that we can build the business of the future that they expect, that's really important. And then ultimately, getting to the right place of, like, what are the products that we wanna invest in? Because you can't boil the ocean. You can't do everything for everybody. No. But there are things that are consistently important across all marketplaces, really spending time on identifying that and really driving value there. Are you changing your sales teams then to to this so what those 1,200 agencies are, basically? They're indie agencies, aren't they? They're way smaller agents. We did that a couple of years ago. So we actually this was work that we did two or three years ago. It's been a huge growth area for us. Automation has been a huge growth area for us. Yeah. Mid market has been a we call it mid market. Yeah. What is it? Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. Felt. I actually like that name. Team Phelps. Yeah. Team Phelps. So we've had a team the last two years really developing that business. Yeah. But you gotta go faster. And so now what we're doing is how do we look at, you know, expansion of a of a team like that when you can't really bring in more people? So what does that look like? And what partnerships, what business

Speaker 0 · 9:18

transformation has to happen in order to enable something like that? So those are the conversations we're having right now. Do you think TV companies in even in The US could actually combine sort of Salesforce's to to challenge that? Because it's like it has 1,200 NDs. It's regional. It's huge manpower. Like, you can't expect AI tools Mhmm. To do that. Like, you when you look at Google and Meta, they are relying on AI tools and a lack of salespeople in a lot of these markets to, to to service these guys. Yeah. But they've got the brand recognition. They've got the one access point. They've got some simplification down. Do you think you guys need to come together and work together maybe to have that

Speaker 1 · 9:52

scale and simplification together? Listen. This is the Walt Disney company. When I call, people open the door. Like, I I get Meta and Google, but this is Disney, and they they open the door for Disney too. You do have that brand recognition. I do. I mean, just But not all TV companies have that. That's right. And so I do think, you know, if I were a different company, I might be considering, like, is there an opportunity to partner with Disney in a different way? Absolutely. We recently integrated our Fubo business. We recently integrated, as you know, the NFL business, put those teams in. A lot of that was natural to what we were doing towards scale and immediately has an impact on revenue for those businesses. Mhmm. Because you're coming in with the Walt Disney company. Yeah. We saw that when we consolidated Hulu years ago. Same thing. Right? The business just immediately takes off. The access that Disney has is different. Mhmm. So I agree with you. Having the right entry point matters, but having the right brand and team representing that business is really important. And and we've been in the marketplace. You know, we've been in the advertising business for fifth over fifty years. Right? So there's it's decades of relationships that have evolved and and will will continue to evolve, by the way, because there's no question that we have to evolve and we have to provide more ways to buy everything that we're bringing to market. But we also have to think about advertising innovation. What does that mean in terms of what a brand's looking for? Mhmm. And how are we gonna grow scale and reach? And that's not only here. It's a lot of the work we've done in The US, which frankly, we're now figuring out how to make it work in Europe, work in Asia, work in Latin America, very different as we know. Like, we talk about are completely different. Right? Yeah. And we talk about you know, the beauty is I came from Latin America, so I know that business inside and out. And it is more regional. Yes. There's a lot of local, but it is more regional. In Europe, while we have 14 countries that have Disney plus, there are 14 different Disney pluses. It's not an AMIA Disney. It's not a US Disney plus. Right? And so you do have to think about it differently when we go to market in France versus The UK versus Italy versus Turkey. Mhmm. How we're launching new markets. We have to have automated tools because we can't staff sales teams right when we launch, but we wanna have the ability to launch ad tiers in different markets. Mhmm. So all of that is what's being discussed right now in terms of how do we go faster and provide brands

Speaker 0 · 12:01

a way to be part of that journey with us Mhmm. Right from the get go. So there's a couple of questions that might might be a little bit unfair. But, do you feel as though that TV has been sort of guilty in the past of sort of harvesting business and not and not growing it? And that's part of the problem because, you know, impressions have obviously gone through the roof. Right? Supply is up, but but demand is pretty flat for the market. Mhmm. And do you think this is, like, the new era for TV to actually start growing your business and actually going out and generating demand? Would you say they'd be guilty of of harvesting, I guess, is the question. There's no question that COVID accelerated

Speaker 1 · 12:35

the ability to move your television linear business to a streaming platform that allowed audiences to watch the way they wanted. Yeah. That ship sailed. As an industry, we COVID also gave us an artificial shot in the arm, like the TV industry. It did. It did. But, you know, for those that were ready to do it, you know, we launched Disney. We Hulu was already in the ads business, so we had a head start in that we knew the business. We knew what it took to drive and launch an ad tier, and we knew what it took to monetize streaming. Yeah. You then had a bunch of platforms come in and and create more supply, more opportunity for audiences to watch, but not really monetization around that. Mhmm. And I'm not sure marketers were ready to shift in the same way. I think now they understand the value of both. Mhmm. We continue to see tremendous growth and opportunity and how that drives incrementality in terms of a of a marketing plan and platform. Because of live, candidly, we're seeing a lot more opportunity, especially in sports. Mhmm. But you're seeing that in just the investments some of these platforms are now making in live sports. Right? There's no question Enormous. That everyone recognizes that. Yeah. Mainly in The US still. Rest of the world, they're they're still struggling to to get this. Because, again, I think in The US, you have scalable marketplace that when you buy an NFL right, it works everywhere. Yeah. There's not really maybe soccer, but not even. No. Not even there's no I guess you just spoke the long Champions League maybe would be interesting regionally, but never what an NFL does here in The US across every market. Yeah. You're right. And so that's hard. Maybe World Cup. That's the one, I would say, in in those regions that would work regardless of where you're. But there's not that same kind of opportunity, I would say, but it's still super relevant. Mhmm. And we are, you know especially in Latin America, we've done, a lot of sports for streaming. It works really well. It's actually probably one of the biggest drivers of engagement for us. We know that. We're doing it sporadically in Europe where there's an opportunity and the right price value equation works because that's the other piece. It's really expensive to be in the sports business. It is. Yeah. And you have to be able to monetize it and know how to monetize it. Right? I think everybody thinks it's the same. It's not. No. Not the same at all. No. So I I think that's going to, over time, evolve. But no question that we we've created this marketplace paradigm, but audiences, it's what it was the right thing to do for the consumer. We just have to figure out the right monetization now, model to make sure that we have long term growth and health in that business. Do you think,

Speaker 0 · 15:03

do you think that the HoldCo's look after about 20% of the overall ad spend business, and it's sort of flat. Maybe slightly Yeah. I think it's flat and probably slightly declining. Are they becoming Is that globally? Or is that That's global that's global figures. So it's about 250,000,000,000 or so. And then the rest is because it's a $1,200,000,000,000 business industry now. So the rest is basically platform direct, indies, SMB businesses. You know, Meta is eighty twenty. Mhmm. 80 in favor of SMBs.

Speaker 1 · 15:31

Do you think that, TV businesses have become too reliant on whole coasts? Are they are they less important for your business today, do you think? Well, I can tell you it's so funny that you asked that question because we did some analysis the other day. We're in the middle of our planning process, and we saw the same period last year, HoldCo business was about 10 to 12% more than it was this year. Oh, really? So there's no question that we are again, strategy in place, diversify, grow mid market, grow automation. Yeah. You're seeing a transition. So we're actually seeing it in the data. Mhmm. I still think we're heavier. I mean, we're definitely not 20% from from a HoldCo perspective. We're definitely higher than that. Yeah. But I would say if you looked at our business five years ago, it was probably 25% more than what it is today. Yeah. By the way, not because they're not some of our best and biggest partners. Mhmm. Because the reality is we have much more business coming in through automation and and through those pipes because we have scale and streaming. I mean, our business is fifty fifty linear streaming. Yeah. But it's also because of the work that we've done with brands directly and the amount of multiyear deals. A lot of that goes first through the brand. Yes. It'll get activated through the agency, but first through the brand. Mhmm. And the growth of mid market, which we've spent a lot of time on Yeah. I'm really honing.

Speaker 0 · 16:46

So we you said it at your your upfronts. We were talking about in fandom engagement. It just seems like it's the word at the moment. Right? You did Everybody used it at the upfront. They did, didn't they? Right, Nick? They did. I I by the time our upfront stage came up, I'm like, jeez. Everybody's using fandom. Yeah. And I get it. Right? You guys you guys got the Super Bowl next year? Yeah. And the Grammys. And the Grammys. It, like, us And the Oscars. Huge And the champagne. Huge amount of, like, premium, high engagement live Yeah. Products. Yeah. What's the can you actually make money? Is the fandom side an audience play, or is it actually can you make money doing the deal? Both. It's both. Is it? It's actually both.

Speaker 1 · 17:22

It's actually super important in terms of how we go to market. It's super important in terms of where brands are prioritizing how they spend. Yeah. I can tell you because we're in the middle of the upfronts. You know, the conversations that are being driven by these big one time events. And and it's not only those four. It's also New Year's Rockin' Eve. It's Dancing with the Stars. It's American Idol. Yeah. It's lot college game day. I mean, is there any show on ESPN that does better on college game day? Highest ratings in the last ten years this past season on college like, you still have ratings growth and numbers in terms of linear Yeah. When it matters. And that's a live show that matters because it shows up every week at a different college campus. You have a talent cast who is, bar none, the best in sports, super resonating in terms of their audience and and how they're driving value in terms of brand partnerships. Every brand wants to be a nutshell. Yeah. And so I do think live is a driver of revenue and opportunity as much as it is of audiences. Mhmm. And and you're seeing that more and more. And then and then the idea is because there's so much activity going on outside the TV set, within all the social platforms is to put your content and not too much content out there because you don't wanna lose the look look viewers in the live audience, and then you're monetizing it via the the social networks, the fandom, and all that sort of stuff. We're monetizing it directly and through those. Right? So, like, there are brands who come in and say, hey. I wanna be part of College GameDay, and I wanna be part of every aspect of College GameDay. So when College GameDay is on TikTok with you guys, I wanna make sure I'm in that content. Right? A lot of it is in content integration, right, which is the other piece of it. It's not just ads. Oh, okay. It's also in content. And so

Speaker 0 · 18:56

live allows you to experience content differently and integrate brands differently. And that's where the real value is because you're not just in a pod. Yeah. You're in the content and storytelling with the top. So these deals are the the main event, what happens to the TV screen, and then it's all the other bits that you add on to it as well. That's right. Can you make much money from the the the social fandom side? Oh, yeah. You can. It's a huge it's a huge driver of income. Absolutely. Okay. And we're spending more time on

Speaker 1 · 19:20

what is that content, how do we make sure that content not only exists on social platforms, but also on ours. Yeah. Right? And so you're gonna see more of that across our brands and probably by the way, just what I heard in the upfront, everyone's doing it. So this is not, like, unique to Disney. No. But it is a reality of, like, hey. We are investing in you know, we launch a movie trailer, and that movie trailer does forty, fifty million impressions. Great. And it should be on our platform too. It could premiere on a bigger platform, but it should be on ours. We think about it on Disney plus. That's right. Yeah. And when we think about you know, we launched Verts, a vertical content hub Yeah. On ESPN. Huge. So huge, we launched it on entertainment. And so it's like, how do you fill that type of storytelling content, which is high scale, high volume? Again, let's see what the advertising experience is. How does it perform from that perspective? But no question that that's gonna be an opportunity for us, and we're gonna drive more there. How do you feel about, like, doing shorts on this? I've always thought about this because Mhmm. Shorts in a premium environment that's transparent, regulated on Disney plus. Yeah. Like, surely that's that's an opportunity for you guys. No question. I mean, I think when when you start looking at we have a a program that we do where we we invest in companies from around the world, and micro dramas is one of the companies that Micro dramas. Micro dramas. Yeah. A company out of I think it's Korea, that creates micro dramas, 100 episodes no longer than two minutes. Wow. And it was fascinating to see, and I'm like, this makes so much sense. Yeah. So much sense. Because when you think about it, it's like I I don't know. Sometimes I realize I've been lost in a scroll for ten minutes. I don't even know what I saw. No. I know. So some I I it's not the same content experience Yeah. But it does drive time spent and engagement that could bring in other different Yeah. New opportunities. And so because you could use your creators for your Shorts as well because you have all the talent and the IP. That's right. And I'd love of it is being created already as marketing pieces that could be actually strung together as really fun storytelling content pieces. Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 0 · 21:16

So 2027, we've mentioned it. You got the Super Bowl. Last year, I mean, it's I believe in this fragmented world, anything that commands over a 100,000,000

Speaker 1 · 21:26

audiences live concurrent Mhmm. Obviously is worth more than it than it was. Yeah. Last year, NBCU were very proud to say that their their prices went up 20%. Mhmm. Price is going up another 20% next year. Prices are going up. They are? Oh, yeah. Any issues with, buyers and that? Here's the reality. There is so much more demand Is that? Than we have supply for. Yeah. It is I say it to people all the time. It is a blessing and a curse. Yeah. And that you have to have really hard conversations because people everybody wants more access than we have available. I mean, it's a finite number of units within a live experience. The beauty is we're carrying it across our entire Disney ecosystem, so there will be incremental opportunities. Yeah. We also have it across our owned and operated stations. So how does that come together and create unwired networks? We have it across our ESPN platform. And so there is incremental opportunity in Super Bowl, but the demand has never been greater. There is there are very few things that drive the impact of a Super Bowl. Yeah. And so that is no question something that advertisers wanna be part of. Now it is an interesting, dynamic at the same time because it is, you know, a certain time of the year that has a lot of live stuff going on. But Grammy is the same. Right? Grammy's is new to us this year. And as part of every conversation, people have wanted to be part of the Grammy's as well. So, I still it it just speaks to the power of live and people wanting to be there. We've actually because it's going to be in LA, our hometown, for our company, we have the Grammys on Sunday. Mhmm. It kicks off the week and the road to the Super Bowl. We have we are taking over Santa Monica and putting most of our live shows daily live shows from there. Oh, that's cool. And it will create a whole week leading up to a Super Bowl, first time on Valentine's Day. Yeah. On a long weekend. Right? It's president's weekend. Yeah. So there's a lot of marketing innovation and opportunity that's being created by all of that, which also is ways to package and think about audiences differently and think about, hey. Females watch the Super Bowl as much as men. Right? It's about half the audience, and it's on Valentine's Day. Can you imagine the marketing ideas that are coming out of the woodwork in terms of how we think about that storytelling and kicking it off really

Speaker 0 · 23:32

interestingly at a Grammys event the the weekend before. It's interesting because because, obviously, I grew up in The UK, but my, my entire family are in Canada. Mhmm. My 11 year old daughter, she knows when the Super Bowl's on. She watches it. We watch it all in the household. So I I totally understand that. It's it's a real it's a real family cultural event even in Canada, North Florida. They're gonna ask the AI question, because and I mean, I know that, again, this it was part of your, your up front as well. Where where do you see AI having the greatest impact of in the Disney business around not just your your platforms and consumer stuff, but also in your ad business?

Speaker 1 · 24:08

Well, in our ad business, we're already using it on when we think about everything, system process automation. Right? So, like, how do we get business through the door and live faster? Right? It takes hours to put line items of an insertion order in. It will take far less time now. Yeah. Optimizing campaigns in real time. The data comes in. It's working. It's not working. How do you change the campaign so that it it actually performs better in real time? Mhmm. So all of that time management and and will be better. It also we've been using it in our algorithms every day in terms of recommendations and everything that we're doing there, so there's no question. We're also looking at we will be rolling out we talked about it at our tech and data showcase in January, a creative AI tool so that this mid level marketer who doesn't always have Yeah. The volume of creative that you need in in those types of environments can actually dynamically creative for them as well? We will. We will have a tool. And so that is an important piece of of of what we will service in the business. And then I think it's about how do we think of new advertising experiences that we can take that are created from the data coming in. Right? And so you can you can imagine commerce being impacted by that and what solutions we roll out there, gamification of advertising and what what comes out of there. There's so many opportunities. Yeah. It's so exciting, but yet at the same time, you know, this is easy. And so we're very careful. Yeah. From an IP perspective, we wanna be respectful in terms of the relationships we have. Mhmm. And we understand that storytelling is really important. Mhmm. And at the end of the day, no one does a story better than the imagination of a person. And so that will be really, a really important piece for how we navigate it together with what we're doing in the business. So you're seeing some efficiencies from sort of almost the old school schedule. A lot of the process stuff that you Yeah. You know, you think about the hands I I say it all the time to our bosses because sometimes they're like, oh, it's going through the pipe. It doesn't need people. No. No. Every time an impression moved from linear where it was six pods, 12 commercials, press and go, it was done. In linear, in in digital, as you know, it's like thousands of line items to do that same one because here you're booking at the impression level. So if that show generated 10,000,000 impressions, there's one commercial, 10,000,000 impressions. Now you're doing 10,000,000 commercials to generate those same impressions. So it takes a lot more hands on keyboard to the management of the business. It's far more complicated than people think. And so I think AI is gonna help us solve to get back to a place where it's manageable so that you're not having to staff

Speaker 0 · 26:28

an incredible amount of people just to deliver the same. But then also you're super careful, particularly in your Disney properties, of the ads that appear and the content. So So you're gonna have to human verify a lot of stuff anyway. That's right. And so we still do a lot of that. I mean, obviously, more and more, we'll be able to be

Speaker 1 · 26:44

kind of first round tested, if you will, through through the, you know, technology that we enable. But I still think you're always gonna have, Mhmm. Especially in a business like ours that is so storytelling IP driven. Mhmm. But there's no question. In the data side, in the system side, in the algorithm side, the ability to make the business efficient, faster, and more successful,

Speaker 0 · 27:06

measurement, all of those things Mhmm. It will be valuable. Which circles back to to how we started. Right? The the speed of innovation is still the critical component of this business. Critical. Critical.

Speaker 1 · 27:14

Okay. And it's funny. I've been in our company. It'll be twenty nine years. It's a long hard check. Yeah. Yeah. And I've never worked harder and faster than I do right now. Yeah. I love it. Do you love it? I love it. You still got the energy for it. I love it because I love it because I love learning, and I get bored easily. I think, you know, anyone You're everywhere at the moment.

Speaker 0 · 27:36

And Yeah. And it's great. Do do you do you sleep?

Speaker 1 · 27:39

I do. Yeah. I by the way, I sleep seven hours every night. Yeah. That's good. I learned that that was really important. Yeah. It's it's changed my life. So I'd sleep seven hours every night. But it is unbelievable to see how much change is happening and things that you never thought possible become reality so quickly. Mhmm. And things that you thought were gonna be standard change in a heartbeat. And that to me is super interesting.