Amazon says its internal data points to a 10% uptick in customer engagement with interactive ads on this year’s Black Friday NFL game compared with last year’s debut edition.
The inventory was certainly there, with a 30% year-over-year increase in interactive ads. About 40% of the brands with a presence on the game were there for the first time, Amazon added, and 20% of all advertising featured new creative designed to debut on the game. Engagement levels were assessed by tracking the use of remotes to click and scan interactive messages.
Viewership of the hard-fought Kansas City Chiefs-Las Vegas Raiders game surged 41% ahead of year-ago levels. Amazon is in Year 3 of its 11-year deal for Thursday Night Football exclusives, and in 2023 began carving out Black Friday as a new NFL stand-alone. That initiative dovetailed with another key priority for the streamer: advertising. Prime Video programming started featuring ads earlier this year and the company pitched ad buyers at its first upfront presentation last May and soon afterward secured NBA rights in another ad-friendly move.
“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, in a statement provided to Deadline. “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.”
Interactivity in ad messages was 11 times more effective in driving engagement than merely displaying a QR code, Amazon said.
Due to the interactive push and the post-holiday timing, Amazon cited EDO data in reporting that viewers on Black Friday were 51% more likely to search for brands or products advertised on the game than viewers of the three NFL Thanksgiving Day games.
