Google may have pulled off a TV ad tech coup just as Comcast and Disney were duking it out over Fox and Sky
- Disney has for months been weighing whether to ditch Comcast's video ad tech for Google's.
- At one point this spring, it appeared as though Comcast's FreeWheel ad serving product might retain Disney's business.
- Then, Comcast and Disney's bidding war for Fox escalated. And some inside Disney are convinced that Google will emerge a surprise beneficiary.
Disney now owns Fox, and Comcast owns Sky.
Meanwhile, a few hundred billion dollars or so later, Google may end up with a piece of Disney.
Wait, what?
In one of the stranger twists to stem from the high stakes media mega mergers of the past year, Google may end up stealing a key client from Comcast in the ultimate 'the enemy of my media mogul enemy is my friend' move.
Specifically, Google may be closing in on landing Disney as a client for its video ad serving product, which would displace Comcast's FreeWheel.
And while this behind the scenes ad tech drama will fall short of rocking the industry like the recent mergers have, it seems that Comcast's push to drive up the price of Disney's bid for Fox earlier this year trickled down to Disney's ad tech decisioning.
The talk inside of Disney is that the company isn't necessarily going to pick Google to handle its digital video infrastructure because of superior tech. It just may want to stop paying Comcast for this sort of thing.
Nothing official has been announced, but most in the ad industry believe Disney will dump FreeWheel for Google's DoubleClick. "It's the worst kept secret in ad tech," said one insider.
Does ad tech really matter to moguls? In this case, maybe so
Back in April, Business Insider reported that Disney was considering making a video ad tech switch. Instead of having Comcast's FreeWheel handle ad serving for everything from ABC's app to live streams on ESPN.com, the company was mulling whether to go with Google.
That would be a big win for Google, which has for over a decade been trying to get its hooks deeper into the TV business, helping it get one step closer to its $70 billion US ad market.
But sometime over the next few months, the tide seemed to shift back in Comcast's favor. Some executives at Disney pushed to keep working with Comcast's FreeWheel, vouching for its technology.
One person familiar with the discussions said there were two camps emerging at Disney: corporate decision makers on one side and ad operations executives, the people who actually use and implement the technology day to day, on the other.
The ad operations officials generally had favorable impressions of FreeWheel. But there were some at the top who were enamored with Google's reputation as a tech powerhouse, and wanting to be associated with that rep.
Regardless, switching video ad tech products at a company the size of Disney is no small matter, say experts.
"It's not an easy switch," said Dave Buonasera, CTO at SpringServe, a upstart video streaming firm. "Keep in mind these are two legacy ad servers. Neither were built for the paradigm we see today."
"So if this happens, it's a good bet the ad-ops team won't be happy," said Buonasera. "Not to mention both companies are in the business of selling ads vs purely proving a technology platform."
Both Comcast and Google went all in on proving their merit Disney
Sometime last spring, a bake off of sorts was held, according to people familiar with the matter. Both parties put together a detailed proposal for Disney, and Disney's ad ops team tested the performance of FreeWheel and Google's DoubleClick.
According to multiple sources, FreeWheel's technology, and its overall proposal, outperformed Google.
However, another source said that it wasn't clear cut, and that both companies exhibited different strengths.
Regardless, in June Comcast bid $65 billion for 21st Century Fox - well surpassing Disney's previous $52 billion offer for Fox.
Soon after, Disney was forced to up its Fox bid to $71.3 billion. Meanwhile, as the summer progressed Fox (which was eventually going to be part of Disney) got into a bidding battle with Comcast for the UK pay TV company Sky.
Needless to say, around this time some executives at Disney became less enthralled with the idea of paying Comcast for anything, let alone a few million to rent its ad tech, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. In fact, the team at Comcast that had been working with Disney during its ad tech bake off stopped hearing from the House of Mouse.
According to multiple sources, word inside Disney was that a decision had been made up high to stop paying Comcast.
"At one point it was, 'we're sticking with FreeWheel," said one Disney insider. "Then it was, full speed ahead with Google."
Yet others dispute this, noting that Disney will ultimately make a decision based on each companies technical merit, and that politics won't play a role.
As of now, no decision has been made. To be sure, executives at Disney have been preoccupied with other matters, such as integrating the Fox assets.
But soon, the ad tech drama is sure to heat up.