Fox upfront—biggest takeaways from its pitch to advertisers

Ahead of Fox’s upfront, media buyers were overheard advising one another to wear comfortable shoes just in case it became a repeat of last year’s event, where many attendees were forced to stand due to sparse seating. But Fox’s 2024 pitch to marketers at the Hammerstein Ballroom had a different feel than its last two pitches (in 2022 the company showed a mostly pre-recorded presentation to the live crowd). Fox mainstays Gordon Ramsay and Michael Strahan joked during the stage show that they demanded seats for the crowd. Jeff Collins, who was named Fox’s ad chief in January, took the upfront stage for the first time. While, according to Collins, other media companies have hurt themselves trying to get bigger and invest in streaming platforms, he said Fox has focused on growing each of its verticals. Collins touted Fox’s ad innovations, such as the implementation of Tubi’s ad tech for serving ads across Fox’s assets, a partnership with Amazon to implement consumer data and shoppable ad formats in its content. Actor Jon Hamm followed Collins, joking he would be sharing “another 45 minutes of numbers.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Streaming initiatives While Fox still claims to have a differentiated strategy not tied to a streaming platform, Tubi took stage time before any of Fox’s other assets. Recently named Tubi CEO Anjali Sud pitched advertisers with the prospect of reaching Gen Z viewers, a different message from many of Fox’s other verticals. Sud described recent Tubi initiatives, such as an incubator program called Studios, in which social creators will make Tubi films and series, posting behind-the-scenes content along the way. Tubi is also upping its investment in original content. And during the Super Bowl, which Fox will air, Tubi will “fashion to the biggest game of the year” with pre-game coverage hosted by model Olivia Culpo. Actor Lauren Graham presented a Tubi original called “The Z-Suite,” a scripted comedy about an ad agency where new Gen Z workers disrupt the workflow of their older leaders (hitting close to home to those in the audience). Super sports Fox closed its show with a promo for next year’s Super Bowl, saying it will be packaging the Big Game across Fox and its Spanish-language network Fox Deportes. The media company was sparse on details, only saying it would look to align brands with news, entertainment and streaming coverage. Celeb-off The week’s first two shows (NBCUniversal presented earlier in the day) have proven that a theme of the 2024 upfront will be which media company can bring more celebrities to the stage to compensate for last year’s star-less shows. Along with Hamm and Graham, Fox’s upfront featured appearances by Will Arnett, Rob Lowe, Rob Gronkowski, Jamie Foxx, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Lisa Vanderpump, Ken Jeong, Joel McHale, Deion Sanders and Tom Brady. But the largest applause by far was for a Fox News journalist. Last year’s upfront featured a live conversation with Fox News’ “The Five” hosts. This year’s included a moving highlight reel of Benjamin Hall, a Fox News correspondent who was injured more than two years ago while covering the war in Ukraine. Hall took the stage to a standing ovation and spoke with Trey Yingst, who streamed in live from Israel. Amid all the fanfare of the presentation, Yingst brought a moment of seriousness, telling advertisers that “in the distance, we can hear the buzz of Israeli drones. As we speak, the Israelis are striking the northern part of the Gaza Strip.”

Fox upfront—biggest takeaways from its pitch to advertisers

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