Asad Ayaz, The Walt Disney Company: Meet the 2024 Global Marketer of the Year Finalists
The five finalists for WFA’s 2024 Global Marketer of the Year award, celebrating the work of global marketing leaders from some of the world’s biggest companies, have been announced. Voting is now open until 20 January 2025 at https://www.globalmarketeroftheyear.com, with the winner announced later that month in partnership with The Drum.
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If you want to launch a blockbuster movie, then Asad is the man you want on your team. He has led the campaigns for the most watched films on Disney+ and Hulu and 13 of the top 15 box office debuts of all time, including eight opening weekends over $200 million, as well as the biggest worldwide debut of all time for “Avengers: Endgame,” which earned over $1.2 billion in five days.
In his role as President of Marketing for The Walt Disney Studios and Disney+, Ayaz oversees all aspects of global marketing – encompassing strategy, creative advertising, media, digital, research, special events, promotions, publicity, and synergy – for Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios, as well as all aspects of brand and performance marketing for Disney+.
As is Walt Disney Company’s first-ever Chief Brand Officer, he is also responsible for managing the Disney brand globally across The Walt Disney Company’s entire ecosystem of touchpoints and consumer experiences as well as leading global consumer research and analytics for Disney’s brands and franchises, primarily focusing on delivering more personalized and dynamic consumer experiences.
Recently, he spearheaded a first-of-its-kind partnership with TikTok, launching the Disney100 hub, in honor of the company’s 100th anniversary. Through the activation, fans were able to watch videos from across Disney's brands, create their own videos with Disney music and effects, play daily Disney trivia, and collect and trade "Character Cards" of favourite characters to win unique profile frames to show off their fandom.
A nearly 20-year veteran of the company, Ayaz has been named one of Forbes’ Most Influential CMOs, one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and was featured in the Adweek 50. He has also received multiple industry honors, including Variety’s Marketing Visionaries Award and The Clio Marketing Mastermind Award.
1. What first attracted you to marketing as a career choice?
I love working with ideas, working with people and problem solving. I’ve been a movie buff, pop culture and comic book fan my entire life. I used to collect movie key art and music album art as a kid and at age 14 my bedroom was covered in framed posters of Batman Returns, The Simpsons, Thelma & Louise and Bram Stoker’s Dracula among others. My first visit to Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios in 1990 further stoked my imagination around wanting to work in entertainment, and in grad school at USC, my eyes opened to the possibilities of not only working in marketing but pursuing a career in entertainment. Taking classes and interning in entertainment and media, I knew that a career in entertainment marketing is what drove me.
However, it wasn’t until I moved to LA in 2002 for grad school at USC that my eyes opened to a whole world of entertainment jobs that I didn’t even know existed. And taking classes and interning in entertainment and media made me realize that my love for film and TV could actually be a real job.
Marketing requires a person to think creatively, plan strategically and is the marriage of quantitative and qualitative skills that I feel blessed to have real passion for. I also feel lucky to work for a company with a culture, stories and brands that I truly love, and a best-in-class team. I don’t take any of it for granted.
2. What were your favourite pieces of work/ initiatives (in the past 12 months) and why?
In a year with Disney exceeding $5B in global box office and with an industry-record three billion-dollar movies, some of my favorite marketing initiatives from our team were based on creative thinking and ideas which allowed us to be truly surprising and do things differently. In the over-saturated and information-overload world we live in, cutting through is increasingly hard.
One of the earlier activations in the year that truly cut through was an “Apes on Horses” stunt our team carried out in multiple cities, with actual actors in ape costumes riding horses in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, The Statue of Liberty and Venice Beach as a marketing stunt for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The stunt generated significant earned media across social, in editorial and on broadcast news, truly going viral and drawing attention to the film and a key aspect of the story.
Inside Out 2 became the #1 animated film of all time over the summer, and the creativity of our team celebrating the relatability of complex emotions as one grows older really struck a chord with Gen Z audiences. We leaned into UGC, offering tools, custom animation, music stems and more across social platforms and our brand partnerships were unprecedented for an animated film, including creating emotions’ headquarters IRL in partnership with Airbnb!
During the summer, we rolled out Deadpool & Wolverine – now the biggest R-rated movie ever, with an expansive global PR tour that included K-Pop partnerships, sports integrations, local stunts with our stars across the world and very creative collaborations with our film talent participating, with a variety of brands including Heineken, Old Spice, X-Box, Jack in the Box and my favorite celebration of our characters’ color thematic with Heinz ketchup and mustard.
Marketing Hulu’s arrival on Disney+ was also a fun creative opportunity for our team, bringing together an incredible variety of shows and movies for families and general audiences, all in one place. This campaign allowed to us to celebrate the unique DNA of each streaming service and bring them together in a way that felt organic and fresh. With the simple idea of tapping into key phrases from iconic Disney-family franchises like “I am your father,” “I love you 3000,” and “To infinity and beyond…” and disrupting them across advertising mediums with Hulu characters, the campaign created a conversation and immediately reminded fans of the incredible stories and characters all now under one roof.
Also last year, we took Disney’s D23: The Ultimate Fan Event to the next level. The three-day celebration is basically our version of a Disney Comic Con, and my team produced it in Anaheim, CA for attendees from around the world. Not only was this event our biggest yet, but we also broke new ground by streaming parts of it in Fortnite and packaged part of it as a first on Disney+. And as another first, the full D23 Fan Event made its international debut in Sao Paulo, Brazil later in the year.
We ended the year with a new version of our annual holiday brand spot, this time as a short called The Boy and The Octopus, directed by the talented Taika Waititi. Taika’s creative approach coupled with a quintessentially Disney creative concept allowed for a memorable Christmas spot that was both inventive and emotional.
3. What’s the most effective leadership action have you taken, in the past 12-24 months, to deliver stand-out innovation/ creativity from your marketing organization?
I can’t underscore enough the importance of having the right people and the right chemistry between a team to truly make a marketing organization thrive. I have continued to refine my team, ensuring that the best talents thrive, and are continually challenged and motivated, and that innovation and creative excellence are recognized and rewarded.
There have also been opportunities to break down silos, increase collaboration and ensure that my team has access to insights, technology and all the right tools to ensure success. As the world continues to change around us, challenging the team to ensure we are breaking new ground, innovating and always fearless in our pursuit of new ideas has ensured marketing campaigns that surprise and stand out to fans and consumers.
4. Changing our focus to the future, thinking about your marketing organization over the coming years: what do you see as priority development areas in terms of skills and capabilities for CMOs and their teams?
Constantly pursuing innovation and never staying still is a key to success for the future. Fragmentation is the new reality. Consumer behavior will continue to change, along with technology and competition from new players in most industries. Thinking differently, embracing fearlessness and trying new things will be important for marketers. The right balance of insights, data and pushing creative boundaries will be important and something my team and I will focus on in a big way.
5. What are you most excited about for 2025?
We’re coming off an excellent year where we achieved a lot and raised the bar creatively and I’m proud to say I’m looking forward to so much more in 2025. I’m very excited about our upcoming slate which has everything from a live action Lilo & Stitch to a sequel to Zootopia, a new season of Daredevil on Disney+, an original spy thrilled in The Amateur, a new Marvel film in The Thunderbolts*, a new Avatar film from James Cameron, a new season of Andor and a brand new Fantastic Four among many others. Across the company, we will celebrate all the 70th anniversary of Disneyland and the continued evolution and growth of Disney+ and Hulu, and ESPN launching its flagship DTC streaming service in the fall of 2025.
I am excited for the all the ideas, creativity, partnerships and more we get to pursue around our shows and movies this year, and I can’t wait for the world to see the exciting marketing campaigns our talented team has in development for the year ahead!
The 2024 shortlist for WFA Global Marketer of the Year also includes: