Amazon’s new video generator helps small and mid-sized businesses create video ads using product images, offering a cost-effective way to reach more customers.
Amazon’s new AI-powered video generator aims to broaden access to an upper-funnel channel that can be prohibitively costly to small—and mid-sized marketers. The videos themselves are fairly rudimentary, based on product images, but the one-click aspect of technology, which comes at no extra charge for advertisers using Sponsored Brands, might draw interest. Amazon made the announcements as part of its Accelerate event last week.
Gellé Frères has already been experimenting with the video generator as holiday marketing campaigns get underway. In a press statement, a spokesperson for the French skincare company said that the solution “significantly reduced the time required to produce a video ad” and has opened the door to video advertising for a wider range of products in its portfolio.
To use the video generator, a marketer on the Sponsored Brands platform can submit their product page and go to a drop-down menu, selecting “choose an AI-generated video.” The tool will then show several video options to choose from that the marketer can edit to their liking. In a demo video, a lavender-scented lotion is fed through the video generator, creating ads that show sprawling fields of the flower. The user then adds additional copy to highlight the product’s qualities.
Availability of the video generator and live image capability is limited at first, and Amazon will fine-tune the technology based on advertiser feedback.
The e-commerce giant began ramping up its generative AI offerings for advertisers last fall, when it debuted an AI-powered image generator. Appliance maker Whirlpool leaned on the image generator for its holiday marketing last year with a campaign that drove more than 2 million impressions and a click-through rate of 2%, above category benchmarks. Extending the concept into the video realm is part of Amazon’s efforts to attract more upper-funnel advertising spend.
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Other digital platforms, including Meta and Google, have made generative AI a focus, with a pitch around production efficiency and scale.
Amazon’s ad segment grew revenue 20% year over year in Q2 to $12.77 billion, a figure that missed Wall Street’s estimates and marked a deceleration in growth from prior quarters.
