Omnicom is advancing its focus on live content through new partnerships with Disney and Walmart announced at Cannes Lions.
The Disney collaboration targets live sports advertising. Working alongside The Trade Desk, Omnicom aims to leverage key moments in live events—such as pivotal plays in NFL or college basketball games—to deliver programmatic ads in real time.
Megan Pagliuca, Omnicom Media Group’s North American chief product officer, called it a first-mover partnership emphasizing enhanced addressability, personalization, and relevance within live sports advertising. Disney began offering programmatic access to live sports only in late 2024.
Charlie Cebuhar, OMG’s North American managing director of programmatic, explained that the partnership uses Disney’s “Magic Words” tool and a custom algorithm to identify critical in-game moments like lead changes or touchdowns. These moments are prioritized based on audience engagement signals.
State Farm’s Alyson Griffin highlighted how this technology allows advertisers to engage with viewers during peak attention moments, increasing ad impact and effectiveness.
Jamie Power, Disney’s senior vice president of addressable, underscored the opportunity for advertisers to connect during high-attention live moments, supported by tools like Magic Words.
The Trade Desk’s CRO Jed Dederick noted the long-term potential for innovative advertising on premium live sports content.
Separately, Omnicom announced a partnership with Walmart focused on influencer marketing. OMG gains early access to Walmart’s customer purchase data to identify influencers who effectively drive purchases on Walmart and Walmart Live platforms.
Research cited by Omnicom shows 49% of consumers regularly buy based on influencer recommendations, and half of Gen Z and Millennials have made purchases following a single influencer post. Nearly a quarter of consumers also watch live shopping events.
The collaboration matches Walmart audiences with influencers’ followers, initially using TikTok data, feeding results into Omnicom’s Influencer Discovery Agent—a data-driven tool for influencer identification.
Omnicom’s Creo influencer division uses this information to pinpoint creators who influence Walmart shoppers, aiming to tie influencer content directly to commerce.
Kevin Blazaitis, U.S. president of Creo, emphasized the collapsing purchase funnel driven by influencer inspiration and the opportunity to connect creators to consumer purchases more efficiently.
Keagan McDonnell, senior director of product innovation at OMG North America, explained that the partnership aligns client target audiences from Walmart purchase data with matching influencer followers, supplementing Walmart Connect’s retail media audience targeting.
Walmart Connect’s Ryan Mayward said they are testing how influencer content can enhance retail media campaigns, exploring expanded influencer strategies with agencies like Creo.
With Walmart serving approximately 150 million weekly customers and accounting for 10.6% of North American e-commerce sales, the partnership presents significant advertising potential. Noosa Yoghurt is among the first brands to utilize the platform, with marketing director Emily Black praising its ability to link creators to verified shopper data.