With upfront season upon us, we asked executives how advertisers’ priorities have changed over the past year as the linear and digital landscapes continue to evolve. Here’s what they had to say.

Amy LeiferAmy Leifer
Chief Advertising Sales Officer
DirecTV Advertising

Advertisers have increasingly prioritized a more converged media approach to reach audiences splintered across video platforms and apps. At DIRECTV Advertising, we’re helping clients navigate this shift with addressable solutions across linear and streaming that seamlessly connect brands with their consumers. This year we expect to see an emphasis on data-driven and performance-based advertising, interactive and immersive formats, and the ability to leverage technology and programmatic solutions as ways to allow brands to reach their audience in a more cross-platform and converged way.

Josh Mattison
SVP, Revenue Management and Operations
Disney Advertising

Advertisers are leaning into live sports, quality streaming environments, and the technology needed to build connections for planning,  buying and measurement in a way that supports transparency and flexibility in delivery. We continue to see a belief and investment in premium, powerful storytelling, inclusion, audience insights at scale and multi-year commitments in sports.

Mark McKee
GM
FreeWheel

The upfront isn’t going away. It’s just evolving. Evolving to fully capture how video is being watched by viewers, and evolving to fully capture the numerous ways buyers and sellers can transact. Nowhere is this more apparent than how programmatic has become fundamental to upfront activation. It’s our job as an industry to break down the silos to provide the flexibility and targeting ability of programmatic, while also honoring the nature of upfront guarantees. For instance, FreeWheel launched the Allocation Module, which is a step towards enabling marketers and their programmer partners to manage the totality of their ad commitments, across all transaction types, including biddable.

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