Dive Brief:

• Amazon on May 12 announced several new ad formats for Prime Video, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The news was timed to the company’s second annual upfront presentation.
• A new pause ad format uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate contextually relevant ads that pair dynamically created messaging with on-screen imagery. Additionally, a new shoppable ad format pulls from real-time Amazon store information, while expanded interactive formats with different calls to action are targeted at brands that don’t sell on the platform.
• Amazon also announced that Prime Video’s average monthly ad-supported reach is more than 130 million U.S. customers, with engagement increasing nearly 40% in monthly ad-supported viewing hours.

Dive Insight:

Amazon’s second annual upfront built on the inaugural edition, upgrading from Pier 36 and relocating to the Beacon Theatre (with a swanky afterparty at the New York Public Library). Featuring Hollywood stars including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Momoa, John Cena and Dave Bautista (along with sports-podcast-brewing mavens the Kelce brothers) the presentation allowed the tech giant to show off results that it achieved during its first full year of advertising on Prime Video — and promise new growth ahead.

“We are seamlessly integrating every touch point to really take guess work out of media planning and buying,” said Tanner Elton, vice president of U.S. ad sales at Amazon, at the event. “Amazon is a one-stop shop for all your needs… the most efficient ads in the industry, with the power of precision, insight and performance.”

Along with sharing Prime Video’s ad-supported reach and engagement figures, the company reported that an average of 88% of viewers on the service have shopped on Amazon. Overall, the company boasted an average monthly ad-supported audience of more than 300 million in the U.S., up from 275 million last year.

New ad formats look to use the power of generative AI to create more contextually relevant pause ads. A viewer watching a scene in “The Summer I Turned Pretty” where a character is on the phone getting relationship advice from her mother could be served a T-Mobile ad with copy about “heart-to-heart” conversations, per an example shared by Alan Moss, vice president of global ad sales for Amazon Ads.

Additional formats seek to give better options to brands that are both endemic and non-endemic to the platform. Real-time shopping ads pull from Amazon’s troves of data and give viewers the chance to make purchases with a click of their remote. For brands that don’t sell on Amazon, new interactive formats serve up a variety of calls to action, including location-based messaging, lead generation (like “get a quote” and “book an appointment”) and “subscribe now” buttons.

Last year, Amazon Ads debuted three new formats — shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads and brand trivia ads — that positively support upper- and lower-funnel impact, including a 30% lift in brand awareness and a 28% lift in purchase intent, per a Kantar study shared by the company. The new formats look to build on those gains.

“Our ad formats are proven to drive measurable action on and off Amazon,” Moss said in a press release. “Based on Amazon’s signals and fully addressable and authenticated audiences, we are uniquely positioned to offer viewers scene-aware ads as extensions of the entertainment experience, not interruptions.”