This upfront season, measurement is more important than ever

Fresh off of Possible, marketers are ready for the next stop on the wheeling-and-dealing calendar.

Upfronts week is officially here, and even if it may not be nearly as glamorous (or scandalous) as it once was, networks and streamers are ready, once again, to make their pitches to advertisers, even if the week itself is less important than it once was.

“It used to just be the upfront,” Carrie Drinkwater, chief investment officer at Carat USA, told Marketing Brew. “Now it’s CES, it’s ANAs, it’s Possible, it’s upfronts, it’s Cannes. We talk about this a lot internally. ‘Where should we start to focus? Where are the most senior clients leaning in?’ So, I would say the glam has gone to Cannes.”

Glam or not, this upfronts week will still be a showcase of premium programming that networks and streamers have to offer, all with the hopes that advertisers will ink significant deals.

According to ad buyers, flexibility in dealmaking remains top of mind this year, especially amid a volatile economic climate, which means measurement—not content—will continue to be a major focus for the week. That’s in addition to the efforts to nab live sports and tentpole events that tend to move the needle. That means Disney may be in an especially prime position this year, as ABC and ESPN will air the 2027 Super Bowl.

“The desire and demand for the Super Bowl predicates the entire market,” Drinkwater said. “Whoever has it—this year it’s Disney—[says], ‘You have to do your upfront, and this is everything we want.’”

Performance pressure

The Super Bowl may continue to rule the US advertising roost, but premium programming is no longer the only factor—or even the most important factor. Ad buyers we spoke to emphasized that there is an even greater focus on showing the value of ad dollars when it comes to brand performance, which continues to take a front-row seat in conversations.

“It’s now less about the content that’s being released, and more about the outcomes that it’s going to generate,” Ashley Hutchings, VP of digital and partnerships at KSM, told us. “In the past, it was always really focused on reach, but I think now more than ever, media has to play double duty in both awareness and lower-funnel business objective KPIs.”

Ad sales execs have recognized this shift, and are using presentations to convey as much.

“What we want to focus on this year is, ‘How does that premium content and that viewing experience drive business outcomes for advertisers?,’” Ryan Gould, co-president of US ad sales at Warner Bros. Discovery, told us ahead of the company’s presentation on Wednesday.

“It’s no secret that the tech platforms are now part of not only the upfront presentation week, but also the negotiation cycles…We want to show our pride and enthusiasm for the breadth and depth of our content across news, sports, entertainment, streaming, and theatrical. But again, we want to prove out that our investment in content can help drive performance for brands.”

Expect to hear that again and again throughout the presentations, which run through Wednesday night.

“Obviously, the storytelling is foundational, but advertising technology, that’s what we look at as the amplifier,” Adam Monaco, EVP of sales at Disney Advertising, told us ahead of the company’s Tuesday presentation. “Everyone’s under immense pressure to perform, and so the goal of our data and technology is to make sure that brands can plan, they can optimize in real time.”

Alyssa Meyers contributed reporting.