Unlocking Synergy: How Walmart Connect and Disney Streamline the Future of Advertising

A scene from the latest superhero blockbuster projecting on your living room wall. That’s not too far-fetched, if you connect the recent deal between the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, and the largest entertainment company, Disney. In a press release issued earlier this month, the two companies announced a multiyear agreement between Disney Advertising and Walmart Connect (Walmart’s advertising brand). The full extent of the agreement has yet to be released, but the big news is that it calls for some of Walmart’s data to be pooled with Apple TV, Hulu and other Disney-affiliated streaming services, with the overall goal of matching data with new streaming consumers to ‘better inform targeting across the board.’ To understand why the combination of these two companies is a Big Deal, we need to grasp what this means to marketers and advertisers, what it may mean for consumers, and what it could signal about the future of targeted advertising.

The Essence of the WALMART CONNECT and Disney Collaboration

Walt Disney Co, a leading global entertainer, marries with US retail behemoth Walmart to together enable its advertisers to access a unique data universe by combining Walmart’s vast consumer understanding with Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph tools, all in one place. Thanks to Walmart Connect, advertisers can harness the former’s deep shopper data-set, using the latter’s Audience Graph tools to achieve better targeted advertisement in today’s fragmented media consumption arena.

Maximizing Audience Targeting with Advanced Data Integration

The collaboration leverages a highly advanced form of audience targeting, by combining the datasets associated with visitors to the Disney sites. Behind the latest collaboration is ‘clean-room’ technology that keeps user-level data secure, so a consumer’s actions on the various Disney sites are treated as permission for that data to be combined but cannot ever be shared with another party. This allows Disney to respect consumer privacy while giving advertisers access to the tools they need to see their messages across the breadth of the Disney streaming portfolio – Disney Plus and Hulu.

The Role of Clean-Room Technology

At the core of this cooperation is clean-room technology, which guarantees the highest privacy for all data integration, meeting the growing demand for data protection as more and more people recognise the value of their digital footprints and lives. Clean-room technology makes it possible to merge datasets without merging changes or erasing any personal data from users. It’s a sort of new stopgate, encapsulating both the necessity for target group-specific advertising and its opposite: consumer rights.

Enriching the Advertising Experience Through Strategic Data Utilization

This would give ad buyers unprecedented ability to leverage Walmart’s panel of an estimated 120 million US shoppers’ purchase histories, matched online to the Disney Audience Graph, providing real-time insights into how individuals interact with Disney media properties. Such joined-up data would mean smarter campaigns developed via granular targeting and the ability to tailor messaging and execution for each viewer, boosting engagement and conversion potential.

The Impact of This Partnership on the Advertising Industry

Together, the companies say, they will push the limits of what can be accomplished in targeted advertising, using Walmart shopper insights and Disney entertainment.

A New Era of Targeted Advertising

The Walmart Connect and Disney partnership pinpoints a new chapter for brands and advertisers to make contextually relevant and timely ads, which could not be possible without brands cooperation. This also shows a shift in organisations working intelligently with data for ad, leading to more business partnerships that would help them achieve their marketing goals.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Data-Driven Marketing

Two of the biggest companies on the planet, Walmart and Disney, are teaming up to sell ads. Picture a dystopian future in which corporate partnerships erode the first-party boundaries that made internet ads so tedious in the first place. Walmart Connect, Google and pretty much every other player will offer both publisher and advertiser access to proprietary data if necessary. But how will they sell ads? More importantly, what can consumers expect in the way of what little privacy remains in this brave new data-centric world?

The Balance Between Effective Advertising and Consumer Privacy

It will be interesting to see how future marketing efforts fare as more companies try to take their advertising practices to the next level by using data in innovative ways. For now, having an initiative that prioritises data security and privacy, such as the one from Walmart Connect and Disney, will serve as a benchmark for how advertising can be carried out responsibly with data.

Exploring WALMART CONNECT

Walmart Connect reflects, and very deliberately inaugurates, a new Walmart – a company that is increasingly less a brick-and-mortar retailer, and more a data-driven advertising vehicle. By capitalising on its retail data to advance digital marketing – Walmart Connect’s raison d’être – the company is looking to the future of retail by hitching itself to the advertising stream.

FAQ: Selling with Gizmogo and WALMART CONNECT

How can Gizmogo benefit from partnering with Wa... [Truncated for length]