Following Amazon Ads' recent panel at Advertising Week APAC 2023, we share topics from the presentation on successfully connecting content to commerce to drive business growth.
In Australia, as the advertisement industry evolves, marketers are being tasked with making sure every dollar delivers and every impression counts. Adapting to industry changes, some brands are turning to streaming services including Twitch (a part of Amazon) to advertise. This enables connection with audiences where they are already spending time and experiencing content they love. By using Amazon Ads' wide range of products (including ads on Twitch) and insight-driven technology, these brands can then help audiences discover new products and move them from engaging with content, to becoming consumers.
Connecting with audiences
Younger adult demographics are often characterized as difficult to reach due to the increasing number of channels where they consume content. This audience fragmentation means it is increasingly challenging to reach potential customers, but there is a solution. Connecting with audiences via their favourite TV series, movies, games, and live streams can help brands deliver messages to customers in the moments they are most receptive to them.
Twitch is an interactive live streaming service for content spanning gaming, entertainment, sports and more, where more than 2.5 million people on average are tuning in to Twitch at any given moment. There is also Amazon Prime Video, which will include limited ads on its shows and movies in Australia from 2024. Amazon Prime Video offers a vast selection of hit movies, great shows and award-winning Amazon Originals all in a single destination.
Studies from Twitch show that younger adult audiences can and do pay attention to ads. The Twitch study commissioned by X measured how much attention (both active and passive) people in Australia, the UK, and the US paid to ads on Twitch across both desktop and mobile. The study found it was their youngest adult viewers (ages 18-24) that paid the most attention and had the highest active attention rate[1]. Streaming services offer brands a powerful medium to reach engaged and attentive audiences with their messaging.
However, to maximise this potential and turn viewers into customers, brands can benefit from identifying where to connect with their desired audiences. This may not be where they have traditionally found them, meaning brands need to adopt new and dynamic ways to connect.
The role of Amazon Ads in moving audiences from content to commerce.
It is important for brands to connect seamlessly upper-funnel brand-building to lower-funnel outcomes. For example, Coca-Cola partnered with Amazon Ads and EA Sports to deliver on Amazon.com.au a bundle comprised of the new FIFA 23 game and Coca-Cola Mini-Cans to refresh gamers while playing the game. This also coincided with the Men's FIFA World Cup. The insights Amazon provided meant that Coca-Cola knew gaming audiences had a stronger affinity to purchase soft drinks than the average Amazon shopper. Coca-Cola also knew that Twitch users are much more likely to drink a soft drink while gaming or streaming than the average population.
With that foundation of audience insights, Coca-Cola deployed and measured customer-centric ads on Twitch. Coca-Cola launched a full-funnel campaign, leveraging a wide range of Amazon Ads' products and placements: Amazon homepage takeover, custom landing page, Twitch, DSP display, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Coca-Cola then created an experience through their Amazon brand store that talked to the Home Stadium idea (inviting fans to turn their home into a ‘stadium'). Working with Amazon Ads' Brand Innovation Lab helped to ensure the campaign experience authentically resonated with the gaming audience, included Coca-Cola's distinctive brand assets, refreshment cues, promoted the game release, the virtual game and mini-can bundle.
All of this was achievable because Amazon Ads offers businesses of all sizes trusted solutions to help them understand their customers. It was a successful campaign thanks to Coca-Cola understanding that they, like every other brand, need to be authentic, fluid, inclusive, collaborative, and purposeful in order to connect streams to sales.
Another program where content seamlessly ties to sales is Twitch's Pog Picks. Launched on Twitch in Australia in 2021, Pog Picks was a livestream shopping event where popular streamers host interactive, game show-esque segments. When Twitch streamers promote the products, a “click-to-buy” interactive carousel links directly to the Amazon.com.au product page. Its live-streamed events are designed to resonate with the community in a particular locale or segments and connect brands to a new generation of shoppers, helping to build long-term brand memorability while driving measurable short-term sales results.
Leveraging unique insights for campaign optimization
Amazon Ads' unique insights help advertisers optimise their campaigns to achieve both brand awareness and sales results. For example, Twitch recently launched a unique proprietary measurement product, the Chat Sentiment tool. Leveraging machine learning, the Chat sentiment tool analyses the quality of conversation happening around livestreams and sponsored activations. Twitch can now not only show product mentions, but also the lift in positive attributes associated with brands. This occurs across both text and the quirky emotes and emojis viewers use to convey meaning. These invaluable insights allow brands and marketers to make sure their campaigns are resonating with their audiences.
It can be difficult for brands and marketers to connect with audiences who are increasingly hesitant of ads. Connecting with audiences via their favourite TV series, movies, games, and live streams can help brands deliver messages in the moments customers are most receptive and move customers from content to commerce. With its unique destinations such as Twitch and, from 2024, Prime Video, Amazon Ads can help move engaged audiences from content to commerce. This, combined with campaign optimization capabilities based on data-driven insights, enables Amazon Ads to empower brands to help their audiences discover new products and to move them from content to commerce.
To learn more about Amazon Ads' offerings, click here.
[1] Unlocking the power of attention,” Twitch + Amplified Intelligence, May 2023
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.