Disney pitches fandom to advertisers at Josh D’Amaro’s first upfront as CEO

Josh D’Amaro made his first upfront appearance as CEO of the Walt Disney Company this week, with more than 100 stars on stage and a pitch to advertisers that fandom is now the most defensible advertising environment in media.

D’Amaro was introduced at the North Javits Center by Anne Hathaway, who leads the cast of the studio’s biggest film this year. Her appearance set out Disney’s central argument: that fans of its content are loyal with a consistency and depth of commitment that media buying alone cannot create.

More than 100 stars appeared on stage, with a further 100-plus talent appearances during the presentation. Those taking part included Ewan McGregor, Quinta Brunson, Robert Downey Jr, Billie Jean King, Olivia Colman and Shaquille O’Neal, and the scale of the line-up was itself part of the case Disney wanted advertisers to take away.

Trust, fandom and innovation

Disney’s president of global advertising, Rita Ferro, structured her presentation around three themes, trust, innovation and fandom, and it was fandom that dominated. “The emotional connection people have with Disney stories is one of the most powerful forces in media,” she said, “creating a unique platform for brands to show up in culture.”

Disney has built that equity across its franchises over decades, and this upfront was its clearest effort so far to package it for advertisers. The argument to brands was that stories put people in the frame of mind where they most want to pay attention, so advertising within Disney content reaches people who already choose to be there.

“Attention and engagement matter more than ever,” Ferro said. “It’s about reaching audiences in environments where they’re deeply engaged.” According to Ferro, Disney reaches upwards of 200 million ad-supported viewers a month and is ahead of other premium streamers on time spent. The message was that scale alone is no longer enough, and that what audiences are doing while they watch matters.

A corridor of live events

Disney’s 2027 schedule is the clearest example of that pitch. After New Year’s Rockin’ Eve opens the run, Disney has four of the year’s major live TV events back to back: the College Football Playoff Championship Game, then the Grammys, then Super Bowl LXI, which airs on both ESPN and ABC, and then the Oscars. Disney plans to sell them to advertisers as a connected run of appointment viewing, letting brands follow audiences from one big moment to the next rather than buying standalone spots.

The Grammys are the most significant addition. The awards switch to ABC on 7 February 2027 after more than 50 years on CBS. Disney is slotting them in between the Super Bowl and the Oscars. In the week beforehand, Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa will present live from Santa Monica Pier, while ESPN Beach serves as the multiplatform base for coverage of the Super Bowl. Viewers reaching the Super Bowl will already have been through the Grammys, and those heading into the Oscars will have seen both, so Disney is in effect selling a season.

The Super Bowl segment showed the scale of the ambition. Laura Rutledge and Jason Kelce brought out a line-up of former Super Bowl MVPs, among them Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice and Eli and Peyton Manning. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell joined Joe Buck to unveil a wider deal between ESPN and the league, under which ESPN will distribute NFL RedZone, NFL Network and the NFL Fantasy App, while the Manning brothers hinted at a role in ESPN’s official pre-game show. Disney is treating Super Bowl LXI as an ecosystem, with the game at the centre and months of content around it.

Franchise news

Downey, Hiddleston and Bettany led the Marvel segment, and Bettany confirmed that VisionQuest, which concludes the WandaVision trilogy, will be released on Disney+ on 14 October. Rosario Dawson said Ahsoka season two will land on Disney+ in early 2027, and Sigourney Weaver announced that Avatar: Fire and Ash will be available on Disney+ from 24 June.

On the FX and Hulu side, there were first looks at new projects from Ryan Murphy and Dan Fogelman, alongside a Scrubs revival that the company said was the season’s number one new comedy.

The event closed with a performance from Olivia Rodrigo, whose career started at Disney when she was 13. Jimmy Kimmel introduced her. Her appearance completed the argument Disney had made from the start: fandom built over years accumulates rather than ageing out. Viewers who grew up on High School Musical, memorised The Devil Wears Prada or have watched Peyton Manning analyse plays for a decade are the same audiences, and Disney is selling advertisers access to all of them at once.