On Black Friday, Amazon showed it can not only attract an audience with NFL football, but that it has better ways to sell viewers its advertisers products.
Earlier this week, Amazon released Nielsen data that showed that viewing was up 41% for the second edition of Black Friday Football. In addition, the online retailer said that the number of sponsors using interactive and shoppable commercials during the game was up 30% from last year.
With its expertise in on-line retailing, Amazon has data on what viewers buy and the technology to connect them with products they want, giving it an advantage over traditional media companies.
“They own the two critical components, the back end and they own the subscriber on Prime. Combining the two of them is a piece of cake,” said Michael Bologna, chief accelerator at Brightline, a top interactive TV company, as well as a pioneer in addressable advertising.
Amazon said that the customer engagement rate with interactive ads during the Chiefs-Raiders game on Black Friday increased 10% from last year, based on remote control click and scan rates.
In addition, the company said that 40% of the advertisers were new to Black Friday Football and 20% of the brands aired new, unique Black Friday commercials created for the occasion.
EDO, a research and data firm that tracks the effectiveness of ad campaigns, said that the ads that ran during Black Friday Football were 6% more effective than the average ad in an NFL primetime game. At the same time ad on the Amazon football stream were 74% more effective compared to the average ad running in primetime on broadcast and cable.
“This year we had an average audience viewership increase of 41% over last season’s inaugural event, and 30 percent more advertisers adopted interactive ad formats that were seamlessly shoppable for fans. The Black Friday game is changing consumer behaviors for both fans and advertisers as a new sports holiday on one of the biggest shopping days,” said Danielle Carney, Head of Live Sports and Video Sales for Amazon Ads. “Prime Video’s leaned-in audience came ready to engage with our Black Friday advertisers through clicks, scans, and search which resulted in our highest customer engagement on record.”
Advertisers during the Black Friday game this year included Google Pixel, Solo Stove, Mazda, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Microsoft, and Uber Eats.
Mazda was the presenting sponsor of Black Friday Pre-Kick, while Uber Eats was the presenting sponsor of Black Friday Kickoff
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