Asia-Pacific Power List 2022: Jessica Beaton, Disney

Jessica Beaton

Executive director, head of content marketing, APAC
Disney+ & Theatrical
Singapore
Member since 2021

Jessica Beaton leads content marketing for Disney+ and Theatrical in APAC, working with talented imagineers, makers and doers across the region. Prior to this, she led Disney Studios’ APAC digital and media efforts. 

Joining Disney in Jan 2020 from Dentsu X, Beaton has been promoted three times in her two years working for the media giant, most recently to the post of executive director and head of content marketing.

She finds herself at the helm of overseeing content marketing for Disney+, the company's streaming service, at a time of explosive growth in the region. Since launching in 2019, the mouse-house owned streaming service has amassed 137.7 million global subscribers and is doubling down on local content with 20 new local APAC content titles, including 18 originals done in collaboration with content creators from Greater China, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. This comes as part of Disney's ambition to greenlight over 50 APAC originals by 2023.

The last year has seen the launch of Disney+ in 4 markets: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. All were highly successful launches with a strong Disney narrative around storytelling and a number of market and industry firsts across each market. With that also came the launch of Disney+ APAC Originals including key Korean, Japanese, Indonesian and other Southeast Asian titles. Recent successes have included Snowdrop (Korea) and Wedding Agreement (Indonesia).

With Disney set to make APAC a key priority in the next few years, as one exec predicts Asia-Pacific to be “on the precipice” of a global content boom, it appears Beaton will have her work cut out. Behind-the-scenes, Beaton has spearheaded a major innovation in performance and reimagined digital processes and relationships that has set Disney up well for the future. She has also been focused on ensuring Disney is highly localised to APAC’s regional markets. This has included launching the first-ever loyalty programme for Disney+ in Indonesia; launching Disney’s first TikTok channels in APAC; and local-dialect dubbing in Thailand.

Outside of Disney, Beaton has been challenging the industry to adapt to the seismic changes happening in marketing, media and measurement via work with the IAB, where she was a board member throughout 2020, and through industry engagement as a digital marketing instructor and speaker at General Assembly. She has also sat in many jury rooms including Spikes Asia and the MMAs.