In 2014, I was just a few months into my job as an executive creative director and head of Amazon’s internal creative agency – then known as D1 – when I found out we would be creating a global Amazon Prime Day advertising campaign promoting the world’s biggest single-day sales event across nine countries.
It was equal parts exciting, overwhelming, and harrowing. The event was so secretive that it was given a code name and was to be handled entirely by our internal team. By the time it came to us as an assignment, Jeff Bezos had signed off on it.
When you work at Amazon you quickly learn that as soon as Jeff signs off on something, there’s no turning back. The focus and pressure to deliver on the highest level is something to behold. We immediately got to work developing a creative strategy that had to be presented to Jeff in an Amazon doc 6-pager format – no sexy PowerPoint slides or animatics. The idea had to be clear enough to stand out in a written document.
At the time, Jeff was famously skeptical about advertising and its value to customers. But times were changing. Amazon was moving heavily into devices like Alexa and the FireTV stick, after having epically failed in its first attempt at the phone market. So, by necessity, this famously anti-marketing company recognized that it had to get better at marketing if it was to succeed at selling its own products.
What Jeff was looking for in Prime Day work was a repeatable format that would work globally and therefore needed to be culturally agnostic. He also wanted confidence that the campaign would drive immediate results and would pass the rigorous benchmarks of Amazon’s internal measurement teams.
Thankfully, Jeff also was looking for a campaign that would be fun. He knew that if the work ultimately didn’t make people smile we wouldn’t get them excited about the event.
The first TV campaign for Prime Day 2015 (which makes me cringe a little now) featured an animated dancing Amazon box we called “Box Man.” Other, more nuanced ideas were presented, but this was the one Jeff liked.
The campaign performed well, enough to set the stage for a stop-motion animated campaign called “Box World” that ended up running for the next three years. If anything, the initial work didn’t take enough of a risk. But as we built on that success, the appetite for risk and the confidence that the work would deliver results grew.
Lessons from Amazon Prime Day advertising
For evidence of Amazon’s increased appetite for risk and brand confidence, look no further than the fact that anchoring the Prime Day 2024 campaign is the provocative rapper Megan Thee Stallion. That is not the casting of a risk-averse brand.
So what lessons can your business learn from how Amazon approaches major marketing and advertising events like Prime Day?
- Embrace data: Four years working at the most highly-measured company in the world taught me to embrace the data, while at the same time not losing sight of the importance of emotion in advertising. A strong creative idea is all well and good, but a strong creative idea backed up by data is hard to argue with.
- Details UX matters: Amazon’s advertising approach is deeply rooted in data-driven optimization. Its DNA revolves around web optimization, where even small details like button colors are rigorously tested to maximize efficiency.
- Measure success mercilessly: Amazon’s ultimate goal is for its advertising campaigns to be self-sustaining. You can bet every dollar spent on their marketing – from the marketing team’s salary to the cost of the Snapples on the craft service table has been accounted for. Demanding demonstrable ROI is a big reason why Amazon is so successful.
- Make small bets: Being accountable to the data is not just about what didn’t work, but what did, and repeating it while aiming higher with each new iteration. Make a small bet on a creative idea, see if it works, and then double down on what did.
- Play to your brand’s strengths and don’t overthink it: “Box Man” was not going to bring home any Cannes golds, but the Amazon box and the “Smile” logo were the best creative assets we had. “Box Man” took the greatest strength that the company had and put it front and center in an obvious way. Sometimes simple, well-executed, is all you need.
Looking back on it, my takeaway from my time over four years at Amazon is this: Simply having high creative standards is table-stakes for businesses these days. To make a mark on the cultural landscape you also need to do the homework. Meaning, you need to do customer research, competitor analysis and stress-test the strategy. Once you have that foundation, start building audacious business goals.