We deliver! Get curated industry news straight to your inbox. Subscribe to Adweek newsletters.
Last year, Amazon disrupted the TV upfront, flooding the market with inventory in Prime Video’s first year with ads and upending streaming ad pricing. Now, in its second upfront, the company is looking to double down on being a one-stop shop.
“Amazon Ads is focused on removing the guesswork,” Alan Moss, vp of global advertising sales at Amazon, told ADWEEK. “We know we’re in some uncertain times, and advertisers are looking for partners who help take the guesswork out of their advertising with full-funnel solutions.”
According to Moss, the company is looking to leverage its AI-driven adtech and signals to optimize advertisers’ TV spend. Amazon also wants brands to utilize its programmatic tech to achieve outcomes. And Amazon will up its premium content through Prime Video and sports. Amazon’s sports portfolio includes the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, the NWSL, the WNBA as well as additions with the NBA and NASCAR.
Ahead of the company’s upfront presentation on May 12, Moss spoke with ADWEEK. Moss previewed Amazon’s upfront offerings, addressed the ongoing uncertainty in the market amid tariffs, and shared details of the company’s growing multi-sport offering.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Last year, the headline was that Amazon shook up the upfront with Prime Video. What do you think the headline will be this year, or the message that will be talked about?
There’s a bit of economic uncertainty on advertisers’ minds and the volatility that’s in the market, and I think advertisers are going to want to invest in marketing that performs. I think they’ll be very thoughtful about where they’ll place their investment and make commitments upfront, and we think our full-funnel solutions and measurable outcomes will be even more important to brands in the environment we’re in.
Speaking of that uncertainty, what’s your messaging to advertisers in early talks?
It’s focusing on value. It’s focusing on the outcomes and business goals that matter for them. Regardless of what happens in the external environment, businesses need to be focused on goals that matter to their business, building their brands, and ultimately acquiring new customers and growing their sales. We believe that our full-funnel solutions, and our ability to work across a number of different properties bring trillions of signals to bear on their customer understanding, ultimately driving outcomes.
What can we expect from Prime Video in Year 2 of ads? Will there be bigger ad loads? New formats?
We remain focused on prioritizing ad innovation over volume. While demand continues to grow, our commitment is to improving ad experiences rather than simply increasing the number of ads shown. And I think you see that with some of the ad formats that we’re continuing to invest in like interactive and native ad formats that create a more engaging and relevant experience for viewers, from shoppable carousels to pause ads. These innovations allow advertisers to connect with audiences in ways that go beyond traditional commercial breaks.
Regarding shoppable, what is the next step there, especially as you bring it to Black Friday, which will have NFL and NBA games?
We’re expanding Black Friday into a true sports holiday. With an NFL game leading into an NBA doubleheader, we’re able to provide brands valuable awareness and conversion opportunities throughout one of the busiest shopping days of the year. We think Black Friday is going to be bigger than ever. What’s exciting about these innovations is they’re not isolated. These innovations are applying across the biggest audiences of the year.
What are some of the innovations advertisers and consumers are responding to?
I’ll give you a couple of examples. Audience-based creative, which we introduced a couple of years ago. And there’s been a lot of uptake in Thursday Night Football.
Brands increased their use of audiences created by 30% last year, and they saw amazing results from this. This is the ability to show different cohorts of audiences, different messages that are tailored to them. The performance was remarkable.
In terms of interactive video ads, we saw the performance that customers that used interactive video ads with Thursday night football last season had 28% higher purchase rates than advertisers that didn’t. The actual interaction rates with units on Black Friday were up by 10%, so that also tells you customer behavior is changing. Consumers and viewers are more comfortable using the remote to interact with an ad, add to their cart, or get more information on a product.
You’re bringing AI-driven adtech and measurement to the upfront and recently introduced Complete TV, which is an AI-driven upfront planning and tracking tool. What’s the importance of that offering?
For too long, advertisers have spent too much time managing budgets in isolation, and what they tell us is they need the ability to see and actually optimize reach and frequency across all the channels and the platforms. We announced Complete TV to solve for this. It’s available on the Amazon DSP. Advertisers can plan, manage, and measure holistic streaming buys—not just on Amazon’s Prime Video—but across all of the premium streaming TV broadcasters, and that’s proving to be really powerful to simplify the planning and buying process.
When looking at the Amazon DSP, we’ve talked to agencies and heard they’re moving significant budgets there. What can you say about the growth?
If you step back over the past two years, we have invested in a very focused way on the Amazon DSP in making it much a lot more usable, providing AI capabilities that are driving efficiencies and performance. In the last year alone, we have announced Performance+ Plus, Brand+, and now Complete TV. All of them take advantage of our most advanced AI capabilities to drive performance on behalf of advertisers, and advertisers are understanding the capabilities that all those all those systems provide and reaping the benefits.
Nielsen is coming into this upfront with MRC-accredited panel plus big data. Obviously, Amazon also has its own measurement solutions. How are you approaching measurement and currency this year?
We’re excited that the industry is moving towards more accurate measurement, so the addition of big data to panel measurement is a welcome change. We have advocated for [it] for many years, and [it] will benefit the industry by having much greater accuracy. Similar to last year, in the upfront we’ll work to meet customers where they’re at, and we’re happy to transact how customers want to transact. We’ll offer a variety of measurement solutions and currencies that we’ll work with, and we’ll also continue to provide our own first-party measurement that can provide insights that aren’t available through third parties. In many cases, things like new to brand audiences and the like distinguish us.
You have a multi-sport offering now with Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA, NASCAR. How are advertisers responding to that?
We’ve seen strong demand from NBA official advertisers. We’ve had great sell-through on our NASCAR and women’s sports inventory. We’re building a first-stop entertainment destination for both viewers and advertisers. We’re investing in programming that appeals to all audiences: men, women, young adults, sports enthusiasts. We want to engage not only your biggest fans, but also casual viewers, and we’re excited about the content that we continue to build that appeals to these broad audiences as it relates to live sports.
Now we have that capability with 12 months a year from TNF, NBA, WNBA, and NASCAR series races through the summer. And that’s not to mention all the other Amazon entertainment properties where you can find those audiences as well. So I think there’s an ability to take a more holistic view that’s now enabled with our sports offering and, frankly, our continued investment in premium programming.
