Entertainment giant Disney (DIS) depends quite a bit on advertising. Whether it is advertising its own products, or advertising other people’s products on linear television or in streaming, advertising is a big part of Disney’s operation. Disney may have shaken up advertising technology, or adtech, significantly with a new development in the field. Investors were less than pleased, though, sending Disney shares down fractionally in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s trading.
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This particular adtech development is applicable to Disney’s sales of advertising on its own platforms. It is supposed to make purchasing advertising time easier. While it is unclear if it succeeded on that front, it is much clearer that it is driving compression in advertising. The new system, developed in concert with Mediaocean, is known as Prisma Direct.
Prisma Direct is a workflow that operates within Prisma itself, and gives media buyers a more direct connection to schedules and available ad time. Prisma Direct turns to application programming interface (API) systems to allow customers direct access. This streamlines availability, simplifies processes, and makes Disney content that much more worthwhile to advertise on by extension.
A Close Call
Disney has been home to an annual event for high school marching bands for decades now, and the result is an exciting combination of kids getting away from home, people enjoying a decent show, and Disney looking like an all-American operation in the process. That did not work so well for one Ohio marching band, the Ashland High School marching band, which had most of its instruments stolen hours before a performance.
A national retailer, Music & Arts, stepped in and offered some help, as did two local music stores willing to rent out the instruments as well. In the end, the kids managed to get instruments enough to march with, and put on a solid show featuring Disney’s own “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story.
Is Disney Stock a Buy or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on DIS stock based on 18 Buys and three Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 15.98% rally in its share price over the past year, the average DIS price target of $132.67 per share implies 17.82% upside potential.
