- Amazon is raiding TV rivals, including NBCU and Disney, for talent to boost Prime Video ad sales.
- Prime Video ads launched in January, leveraging sports and scale.
- Amazon faces challenges integrating video ad sales and sharing viewer data with advertisers.
Amazon has lured several ad execs from traditional TV competitors as it competes with them for ads.
The e-commerce giant started running ads in its Prime Video streaming service in January. Advertisers have responded largely positively, thanks to its broad sports offering, breadth of ad products, and potential to tie ads to product sales. That's given Amazon a leg up over established TV players and Netflix, whose ads business has grown slowly for the past two years and has already shaken up its ads leadership twice.
To help attract TV advertisers that think of Amazon primarily for performance-based ads, Amazon has brought on experienced TV ad salespeople from NBCUniversal, Disney, and others. They include NBCU vets Krishan Bhatia as VP of global video advertising and his former colleague Jenny Burke. Bhatia was seen as a contender to run all of NBCU advertising before the job went to Mark Marshall, and Burke was a 17-year vet of NBCU who had risen to EVP. Amazon is continuing to hire, including for a strategy role that pays up to $262,000.
A holding company exec who's had around a dozen clients advertise on Prime Video gave the experience high marks so far. They said they were impressed with how Amazon communicated the advertising change to viewers and made sure advertisers got the ad impressions they were paying for.
"It says they are willing to be a bigger player in the TV space," said the exec, who asked for anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive working relationship.
Amazon is set to report earnings on August 1, when analysts will be listening for updates on Prime Video ad sales progress. In a recent Wedbush Securities survey, 91% of advertisers said they would increase their spending on Amazon in the third quarter, up from 87% who said they would in the second quarter.
Amazon's video ad ambitions aren't challenge-free. It has to tie video ad sales into a sprawling ads business and overall company, of which advertising is still a relatively small part. Ad buyers have to deal with multiple sales teams at Amazon, which can be a pain point.
Advertisers accustomed to buying TV ads have also had to adjust to how Amazon does business. For example, some advertisers complained that Amazon wasn't giving them credit for spending on "Thursday Night Football" ads in their negotiations for Prime Video ads, which would have been standard with legacy TV sellers like NBC and Disney.
Advertisers also generally want Amazon to share more viewer data. Some buyers have questioned how much people are actually watching Prime Video, which is included with their Prime membership, best known for the shipping benefits.
Here's a rundown of ad pros recently hired to build Amazon's Prime Video ads business, listed alphabetically by last name:
- David Amodio, head of video sales specialists for Northern Europe, from Channel 4 in the UK
- Scott Comstock, head of US Video Strategy and GTM, Amazon Advertising, from NBCU
- Jeremy Helfand, VP and global head of advertising for Prime Video, from Disney
- Suzy Ioannou, senior video sales specialist, from Disney
- Anthony Marciano, director of finance, Prime Video and Freevee advertising, from Disney
- Jordan Neidig, senior video sales specialist, from TikTok
- Jeff Westfall, senior video sales specialist, from AMC Networks
