Amazon is introducing adverts to its Prime Video streaming service in a matter of days. Not only is this a controversial move, as discussed in a recent newsletter, it is also going to prompt a significant shake-up of the ad market.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the platform’s “scale, in both subscriber reach and real viewership, has analysts thinking that Amazon will be able to quickly scoop up billions of ad dollars.” In the piece, writer Alex Weprin notes that “advertising is also a zero-sum game. While ad spend has grown over time as the economy has expanded, when a marketer or agency decides to commit budget to a new player, it is usually at the expense of someone else.”
There is so much about Amazon introducing ads to Prime Video that is fascinating. Will customers be ok with them being on by default? Do enough people use the service enough to pay the extra £/$2.99 per month to get rid of the adverts? From where will the marketers move their budget – will it be linear TV, as Weprin suggest? (Probably.)
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Prime Video Has the Eyeballs For Adverts
This week, Netflix let it be known that it has 23 million users on its own ad-supported tiers. You know, the one that is cheaper and was not a default option for users. To reiterate the point from the newsletter – I am not anti-adverts. Quite the opposite. However, the way Amazon, in particular, has gone about this is not quite the vision of streaming we were originally sold.
The key point, though, is the number of eyeballs potential available for Prime Video adverts. Amazon is entering the market with a product that is essentially an add-on to free one-day delivery. It is, though, so big that marketers cannot help but be interested in it. Unless there is an (unlikely) consumer backlash, Amazon might be about to blow its rivals out of the water.
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