Amazon Introducing Ads in Video: Expected, But Not Enough for Amazon to Win Advertising Wars

eCommerce
Written By Rick Watson

Amazon Video has always been the stepchild of streaming. A little worse content than Netflix, HBO (Max?) and even AppleTV, but hey, it's free. Now you can have your questionable content served with a side of ads.

Here are a few of the updates shared by Amazon that are coming in 2024:

* The free Amazon Video plan without ads goes away and in its place, the free tier is going to have ads on it.

* A new $2.99 per month subscription will be ad-free, except for live events. This means your typical TV shows and movies.

* Live events like Thursday Night Football (which of course often exclusive and users have fewer choices) will all have ads in them.

First, you knew this was coming for two reasons -- one, advertising revenue is just too valuable to ignore.

And two, Amazon's advertising business needs to keep growing. For that to happen, Amazon needs more surface area to show customers.

Still, Amazon has two big problems overall with its advertising business. One is that Google and Meta have more surface area to display ads than Amazon, because ads are displayed on consumer-generated content, and second, TikTok is getting all the user attention and growth.

Both would need to change for Amazon for it to challenge for that top advertising spot in the future.

Sadly, I've resigned myself to an ad-filled future, because Amazon Video is not worth the extra fee in this household. I suspect many viewers have already made the same calculation.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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