Inside Amazon’s plan to 'transform entertainment' into real business impact

In the middle of a fractured media landscape, Amazon is stepping into Australia’s marketing mix with scale, data and a clear mission to connect content and commerce in measurable ways.

Tamir Bar-Haim, vice president at Amazon Ads who is in Australia this week, told Marketing-Interactive that advertisers are under increasing pressure to make brand investment more accountable and efficient.

“Advertisers are being challenged to help make their brand investment more accountable and more efficient,” he said. “Historically it sat off in a silo and it's been difficult to connect that brand investment back to real, tangible business outcomes. And so that's a really core focus for us.”

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Bar-Haim calls it Amazon’s “connective tissue” moment - where entertainment, shopping and data converge.

“We want to transform entertainment experiences into those real, measurable business impacts,” he said. “We can do that by helping advertisers measure the incremental impact across each stage in the customer journey.”

Australia’s momentum

Australia has quickly become one of Amazon Ads’ fastest-growing markets, fuelled by the rise of Prime Video Ads, which now reaches five million customers with 80% renewal rates among advertisers since launch.

“Australia has consistently been one of our fastest-growing countries over the last few years,” said Bar-Haim. “We were really excited to bring the largest ad-supported streaming service in the world here to our Aussie customers - 5 million customers streaming high-quality, award-winning movies, TV shows and live sports. And the reception has been really great.”

That momentum, he said, shows how brands are seeking both efficiency and accountability at a time when media fragmentation is stretching marketers thin.

More with less - the marketer’s dilemma

For Willie Pang, general manager of Amazon Australia, the challenge facing advertisers is clear.

“Our advertising partners are being challenged to do more with less,” he said. “There’s a significant weight required to balance and coordinate investments across so many different premium properties. We think we can play a key role in helping with our DSP - not only providing access to our own first-party premium supply, but also giving them great access to the open internet and thousands of premium publishers like Netflix.”

Pang described Australia as a test bed for what he calls “true interoperability”, where marketers can plan, activate and measure campaigns across multiple environments through the Amazon DSP, connecting shopping, streaming and browsing data in one place.

“What’s keeping marketers up at night is how to deliver more with either the same or less,” Pang said. “Finding ways to get more efficient in how they plan, activate and measure their media is more important than ever before. The idea of full-funnel advertising has always been the panacea, but for the first time in my career, it’s actually possible.”

AI at the core of decision-making

Underpinning that promise is Amazon’s AI-powered advertising stack. The company’s DSP now allows marketers to build campaigns faster and smarter using automation and predictive modelling based on “trillions” of signals across streaming, shopping and browsing.

“Having all of that information means nothing if you can’t organise it and make it work for marketers,” Pang said. “That’s where the range of AI-powered solutions inside the Amazon DSP helps marketers to make sense of it.”

Early global data, according to the team, shows campaign setup times are 75% faster with Amazon’s AI workflow.

“That in and of itself has traditionally been the art of media practitioners. But having technology to make that faster and smarter is at the core of what we're trying to achieve.”

Bar-Haim added that AI’s potential goes well beyond efficiency. “The technology is exciting and has the opportunity to be really transformative,” he said. “We’ve been investing in machine learning and generative AI for many years - it started with the personalised shopping experience on Amazon and we think we can have a similar impact in the advertising space.”

Amazon Ads began as a retail media business but is now leaning hard into brand storytelling, helping marketers bridge the gap between awareness and conversion.

“We started as a retail media business, helping brands big and small optimise their mid-funnel and lower-funnel business for high-quality conversions,” Bar-Haim said. “We’ve spent the past year building out these brand experiences, both through Amazon-owned properties as well as the open internet. Now the core focus is on that connective tissue between brand and performance.”

That connection, he explained, is powered by the Amazon Marketing Cloud, allowing brands to fuse their own first-party data with Amazon’s “trillions of shopping and entertainment signals” to dynamically optimise campaigns and understand paths to purchase.

Even brands that don’t sell on Amazon are driving strong results. DoorDash, for example, partnered with Amazon Ads to promote its DoorPass subscription with a custom Prime Video sponsorship tied to Nine Perfect Strangers. The campaign reached 3.9 million customers, achieved a 97% video completion rate and lifted awareness by 7 points, purchase intent by 16 points, and consideration by 4.6 points.

Another standout was NESCAFÉ’s Prime Day campaign, which delivered a 321% uplift in category searches for its new Espresso Concentrate through a full-funnel activation spanning the Amazon Store, Prime Video, and influencer integrations.

Sport and the cultural connection

Amazon’s latest global push into sports - including a deal with NBA to stream 67 exclusive games per season, plus the T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy is also playing a role in deepening brand engagement.

“You only need to spend about five minutes in this country to realise how big sport is,” Bar-Haim said. “Our focus is on providing customers with highly relevant local sports experiences - cricket here, football in South America, hockey in Canada - paired with global rights that move the needle for advertisers and customers.”

“Our foray into sports is really about helping brands get engaged in cultural conversations,” Pang added. “Nothing is more culturally relevant than sport - the greatest unscripted drama on earth.”

With five million Prime Video Ads viewers, an 80% advertiser renewal rate, and AI-powered tools now connecting entertainment and shopping data, Amazon is emerging as one of Australia’s most powerful full-funnel players.

As Pang put it, “The full-funnel dream marketers have talked about for two decades - I think we’re finally there.”