Disney embraces Google’s PAIR, something businesses must pay attention to!

Published: June 20, 2023

min read

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2023 officially began on June 19, and the entire industry is excited to know about new announcements and partnerships to be made in the global event for the good.

And, on the first day of the event itself, Disney and Google announced their expanded partnership. As part of the deal, Disney integrates Google’s new ad tech product, known as PAIR (Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation), into its platform.

The demise of third-party cookies has resulted in a rapid increase in the vitality of first-party data for brands and marketers in order to successfully execute their online ad campaigns.

And, to effectively face the post-cookie world, big heads in the industry are leaving no stone unturned and coming up with different methodologies. For its part, Google introduced a solution called PAIR last year.

PAIR is Google's latest innovation on Display & Video 360 that allows advertisers to narrow down online campaigns by matching their first-party datasets with applicable publishers.

Disney intends to increase the efficiency of substantial Disney advertisers by offering better targeting and measurement as they place ads on assets such as Disney+ and Hulu by integrating with Google's new ad tech product.

Rita Ferro, president of sales at Disney Advertising, is in Cannes to discuss PAIR with the six major holding companies.

According to Ferro, Disney has been developing a programmatic internet ad service that serves approximately 5,000 brands.

As of now, Disney is the first major media company to widely endorse PAIR.

Google Ad Manager is a key component of Disney's ad technology. PAIR can assist with audience pairing, addressability, ad frequency administration, and measurement across connected television and other channels. Ferro added that Disney will not implement PAIR integration until next year. The timing coincides with Google's planned removal of cookies from Chrome in the second half of next year.

What does Disney’s new announcement mean for CMOs?

With Google recently announcing its plans to deprecate third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users and move them to the Privacy Sandbox in the first quarter of 2024, it is evident that the ad tech industry is making fast moves towards a cookie-less world.

Indeed, it has become outright necessary for businesses to embrace new technologies and data clean rooms in order to sharpen their ad targeting and measurement with the bedrock of digital advertising — third-party cookies—slowly vanishing.

As the cross-referencing of first-party data is performed at an aggregated level in PAIR, Google claims that the intermediaries will not be able to hack any encryption. Given that, we believe it can be a viable solution for businesses to precisely target even in a cookie-less world.

Although PAIR is yet to be widely adopted in the industry, we see Disney’s adoption as an initial catalyst, which may drive its adoption faster going forward.

Here are a few benefits, in our opinion, that Disney advertisers will be able to get as an effect of Disney’s expanded partnership with Google:

This partnership will enable Disney advertisers to do data-driven targeting in a privacy-focused manner. With which advertisers can serve ads to users after knowing their interests and requirements. As a result, they will be more likely to increase ad relevancy, increase their chances of capturing their target audience's attention, and drive conversions while ensuring user privacy.
With PAIR, advertisers will be able to analyse real-time data and user signals, and accordingly, they can target and create tailored ad experiences that resonate with them. This will help them ensure they spend ad dollars on the right audiences at the right time. Consequently, it can lead to improved engagement rates and ad performance.
PAIR is ideally designed to provide a more privacy-focused approach to advertising. Thus, by leveraging this privacy-enabled technique for targeting, Disney advertisers can ensure their advertising practises are aligned with evolving privacy guidelines. Through this, both Disney and its advertisers are more likely to build trust with their users and improve their reputation.
As cookies are slowly drowning, adopting alternative solutions like PAIR earlier will help brands gain a competitive advantage. Besides, it will help them stay relevant, engage with users effectively without compromising their privacy, and maintain effective ad campaigns in a post-cookie era.

Overall, Disney has made the right move to facilitate a frictionless ad buying process for businesses in the post-cookie world. We see it as a significant update for CMOs, as it is noteworthy to comprehend how the digital advertising landscape continues to evolve and step forward so as to take actions accordingly.

Author

Sarah Johnson

Sarah is an analytical marketing expert with a passion for data-driven insights. She has a keen eye for detail and a talent for turning complex information into actionable strategies. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, travel, and trying out new recipes in the kitchen.