• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 3, 2022

Amazon has unveiled a Virtual Product Placement (VPP) beta program that enables marketers to place “approved products” into participating Prime Video and Amazon Freevee original content after filming has been completed.

The company announced the service at its first in-person Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) NewFronts presentation on Monday evening.

The idea behind VPP is to help brands reach any audience, while allowing Amazon content creators to focus on telling compelling stories.

Some popular Prime Video and Amazon Freevee Original titles are already participating in VPP, including "Reacher," "Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan," the Bosch franchise, "Making the Cut," and "Leverage: Redemption."

“Virtual Product Placement is a game changer,” said Henrik Bastin, CEO of Fabel Entertainment and executive producer of "Bosch:Legacy." "It creates the ability to film your series without thinking about all that is required with traditional placements during production.”

One consumer products goods (CPG) company, an early adopter, experienced a 6.9% increase in brand favorability and a 14.7% increase in purchase intent for its campaign.

Amazon executives also highlighted multiple advertising products that offer marketers advanced campaign planning, measurement, and optimization strategy.

A new Streaming TV Media Planner enables advertisers to see their incremental streaming TV reach through Amazon Ads, and compare it to the reach they get on linear television.

Omnichannel Metrics, currently in beta, provides measurement to enable in-flight campaign optimization, while Amazon Brand Lift measures post-campaign impact against objectives such as awareness and purchase intent.

With Amazon Marketing Cloud, advertisers can bring together datasets from multiple sources to generate cross-channel planning and performance insights, based on their business needs. 

Amazon executives also unveiled content and technologies that enable marketers to find opportunities to build a presence across Freevee (formerly IMDb TV); Thursday Night Football on Prime Video; and Twitch.

Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of ad products and tech at Amazon Ads, explained how the company continuously innovates on behalf of customers and pushes to find new ways to exceed the expectations of marketers.

Amazon Freevee announced an increased slate of premium Originals, with multiple pickups of scripted and unscripted content.

The free streaming service introduced a cooking competition series called "America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation," coming-of age drama "Beyond Black Beauty," family competition series "Play-Doh Squished," and music documentary "Post Malone: Runaway."

Freevee also picked up a second season of "Bosch: Legacy" and a third and fourth season of "Uninterrupted's Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers."

The Amazon business also secured a short-term film licensing agreement with Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution for a limited selection of titles such as "Deadpool," "Deadpool 2," "Logan," "Hidden Figures," "Murder on the Orient Express," and "The Post."