Today at its Australian Upfront, Amazon unveiled a suite of new formats and partnerships designed to bring the worlds of premium entertainment, commerce, and advertising together as part of a full-funnel marketing strategy.
Amazon’s latest announcements are focused on what happens after consumers see an ad, tapping into how much relevance can be built into that moment.
Revolutionising The TV Ad
Two of the biggest announcements centre around bringing personalisation and interactivity to Prime Video. This includes interactive features such as send to phone and sign up today to turn the television into a more actionable touchpoint.
We spoke to Willie Pang, Managing Director at Amazon Ads, on the biggest opportunity that brands are missing in premium entertainment advertising:
“For brands, the opportunity is to think beyond the traditional ad break and consider how they can become part of the story, while connecting those entertainment moments with measurable outcomes across the customer journey.”
Dynamic TV Creative takes this personalisation a step further, with brands uploading a single creative asset which Amazon’s technology dynamically adapts to produce multiple versions. Including product assets, headlines, CTA’s and product details, using Amazon’s shopping, browsing and streaming signals alongside AI-powered creative optimisation. This represents a significant change in the role of television advertising by making the same campaign increasingly relevant for the individual watching rather than creating one message for millions of viewers.
Willie expands on the TV screen becoming actionable, explaining:
“We’re seeing streaming become a much more interactive and measurable part of the customer journey, with formats that enable audiences to engage with brands and take action directly from their television screen. Interactive Video Ads can include CTAs like “Send to Phone” and “Sign Up Today”, while shoppable formats allow customers to add products directly to their Amazon cart, creating a more seamless path from awareness to action without leaving the stream.
For advertisers, this creates a stronger connection between premium entertainment and action, with the ability to deliver more relevant creative and connect those interactions to the broader customer journey.”
Connecting The Ad Viewing Journey
Amazon is also revolutionising what happens between consumers viewing episodes by turning one ad into an entire viewing journey. The new Next Up Ads format places a brand message whenever a viewer finishes one episode and queues the next, allowing advertisers to build a connected narrative across an entire viewing session rather than an isolated moment.
Willie expanded on how this new approach to ads changes the way brands approach storytelling in streaming environments:
“This format enables a single brand to place messages as viewers move between episodes, creating the opportunity to develop sequential creative that builds a cohesive story over time. It gives advertisers greater flexibility in how they approach storytelling within premium entertainment, whether that is extending a single campaign idea or developing a narrative that evolves throughout the viewing experience.”
This is particularly interesting for brands investing in entertainment partnerships as Amazon builds advertising experiences around the viewing journey itself. L’Oreal Paris’ partnership with the recent TV series Elle demonstrates the commercial potential of this advertising experience.
The integration of shoppable Prime Video advertising enabled the campaign to reach 1 million unique viewers in Australia and generated more than 5,000 branded searches. Rather than placing a product amongst culture, Prime ads create a route from culture to consideration to commerce.
Willie Pang expands on Amazon as a commerce platform for advertisers:
“For Amazon Ads, our full-funnel advertising offering means we’re helping brands connect awareness, consideration and conversion into a cohesive strategy, and helping advertisers understand and measure the contribution of each stage of the customer journey – regardless of whether that journey ends in a sale in a brand’s Amazon store, a sign-up to their mailing list or a booking in one of their hotel rooms.”
Through Amazon DSP, Amazon ads expands its programmatic capabilities by bringing together audio, publisher inventory, and streaming all within the same buying and measurement infrastructure. The brand has also announced a direct integration with Spotify Ad Exchange, extending its existing relationship with Spotify.
Most notably, Amazon is also extending its Amazon audiences to Netflix by using the brand’s shopping, browsing and streaming signals to enable advertisers to target Netflix viewers according to interest and shopping preferences. Further connecting audiences across premium entertainment and the wider internet.
The Shift to AI
The upfront also leaned into AI, showcasing Ads Agent, an agentic AI tool designed to help Australian self-service DSP advertisers build, optimise, and analyse campaigns using neutral language. The Amazon Ads MCP Server, which is now available to Australian advertisers in open beta, allows technology partners, agencies, and advertisers to connect AI tools directly into advertising solutions for campaign creation and reporting.
Willie commented on what this means for marketers:
“We see AI supporting marketers rather than replacing the skills they bring. Strategic thinking, understanding audiences, strong creative and knowing what outcome you are trying to achieve remain critical. AI can help advertisers execute against those objectives more efficiently and make sophisticated advertising capabilities easier to use.”
These developments suggest that Amazon is looking beyond AI-generated creative, with the bigger opportunity lying in using AI to simplify the process behind advertising. From measurement to optimisation, Amazon’s first-party signal provides the intelligence to inform these decisions.
What’s Next For Streaming Advertising?
Amazon’s Upfront points to a wider shift in streaming advertising from buying attention to making that attention actionable. Prime Video brings the premium entertainment environment, Amazon brings its shopping and browsing signals, and AI brings the ability to personalise and optimise the experience at scale.
This results in an advertising model designed to connect awareness, relevance, and commerce all in one journey while expanding beyond Amazon’s own platforms into publishers, audio, and Netflix.
For marketers, the opportunity no longer lies in reaching audiences while they watch; it is to understand what makes those audiences relevant and adapt ads accordingly to create a clear path from entertainment to action.
