BUSINESS OF DATA

The Business Of Data With Jon Lafayette: Disney Shows Off Data and Tech at CES

Jon Lafayette

Jan 8, 2026 • 4 min read

The Consumer Electronics Show has beecome a big gathering spot for people in the ad industry. No wonder. The ad business has become increasingly dependent on tech and data and showing you have technology chops is now table stakes. Several companies made announcements about their tech and data plans this week, including Disney. Read below to find out more.

Disney’s New Magical Metric for Advertising Success

‘This year we’re doubling down on giving you more control in measurement and performance,” said Disney’s Rita Ferro

The art and science of measuring TV commercials has been a critical area of interest ever since digital advertising started taking the lion’s share of marketer’s ad dollars.

Knowing what’s responsible for making cash registers ring is the key to the buying decisions being made by marketers.

Disney, which has always asserted that it brings a special brand of marketing magic to its clients, has introduced a new data-based metric to demonstrate the effectiveness of advertising on Disney platforms. [READ MORE]

NBCU Heads to Medal Stand With Record-Setting Sellout of Olympic Ad Inventory

NBCUniversal has a big February ahead with an unprecedented lineup of huge sports events including the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Game. The company’s ad sales group has already cashed in.

NBCU announced that it has sold out all of its advertising inventory in the Milan Cortina games, generating record linear and digital revenue for a Winter Olympics.

It also said the NBA All-Star game is sold out. NBCU declared in September that the Super Bowl was sold out. [READ MORE]

Roku, iSpot Team Up to Optimize Campaigns With Outcome Data

In the television advertising world, everyone is talking about outcomes. When marketers buy a commercial, they want to know how many people go to their website, visit their dealerships or go to the store and buy their product. In short, they want to know how big a bang they’re getting for their bucks.

Measuring TV ain’t easy. Just figuring out how many people saw an ad has proved to be a difficult chore as streaming fragments the audience. Nevertheless, a number of research, data and analytics companies offer to tell advertisers how well their commercials and campaigns performed.

Note that I said performed in the past tense, as in after the campaign has run its course.

Now streaming TV giant Roku and measurement and analytics company iSpot are teaming up to help advertisers use real-time outcome measurement to increase the effectiveness of campaigns while they’re in flight.

Roku says it is the first major streaming publisher to use iSpot’s Outcomes at Scale product to optimize campaigns. [READ MORE]

Daily Show: Comscore Offers Episode-Level Content Measurement

The streaming era has brought a surprising level of uncertainty to advertisers that want to know exactly in which shows their commercials are airing.

With more media buying being done programmatically, information about show titles and episodes often isn’t readily available, creating issues of transparency.

Comscore, which has historically focused on measuring the viewership of commercials on digital platforms, more recently began measuring the audience for content. Now, users of its Comscore Content Measurement will be able to get data on audiences for content down to the series and episode level. And they’ll be able to get that data on a daily basis, whether the program appears on linear TV or streaming. [READ MORE]

Amazon Holds Prime Spot in 2026 Upfront Parade

As 2026 begins, we are reminded that while the world is evolving rapidly, there are parts of the media and advertising business that change slowly and reluctantly.

The TV business has been invaded by powerful, giant tech companies which have sought to impose the more efficient processes of the digital world on a tradition-bound industry. One tradition that seems to be not just surviving the onslaught, but thriving is the annual upfront.

The string of glitzy events designed to show off next season’s programming for advertisers survives, supplemented by talk about advanced data-enriched targeting technology. TV companies are making bigger and bigger splashes at CES in January to demonstrate how they’re making commercials more effective. [READ MORE]