Marketing Mastermind
Alumni were well represented at the Emmys this year, garnering nominations and wins.
Asad Ayaz ’00, president of marketing at The Walt Disney Studios, is on fire. The Hollywood Reporter named Ayaz as one of “Hollywood's Top 25 Marketing Masterminds of 2019.” Ayaz and his team have made the marketing of anticipated Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and now 20th Century Fox films, as artful and successful as the films themselves. Ayaz sets new bars with each film and continues to build on his unprecedented success. This summer, Entertainment Weekly celebrated Pixar’s Onward trailer writing, “The new footage sheds more light on the poignant story at the heart of this fairy tale.” And after marketing the highly anticipated Frozen 2, it broke pre-sale records. CNBC reported that in the first day of advanced ticket sales, Frozen 2 had sold more tickets than any other animated feature on Atom Tickets and Fandango. CNBC continued, “Additionally, Frozen 2 outpaced first-day ticket sales of every Disney live-action remake.” Opening remakes of live-action films were also in Ayaz’s portfolio—something he spoke with Bennington magazine about in 2017. “Reaching viewers in the new media landscape requires more ingenuity and creativity than ever before. There’s so much happening in the world and on all the different screens. To get attention you have to find a way to stand out. You have to eventize a movie.”