Dive Brief:
- Amazon unveiled a new solution that uses generative artificial intelligence to convert product images into video ads, as detailed in a blog post.
- The video generator, currently in beta, is part of Amazon’s Sponsored Brands campaign suite and available to ad partners at no additional cost. Gellé Frères, the French skin care company, has been testing the offering as it prepares for the Black Friday rush.
- Amazon also announced a new live image capability for its existing image generator feature that allows brands to add flourishes, like steam rising from a coffee cup, to what were previously static pictures. These tools come as large digital platforms go all-in on generative AI to attract more advertising spend.
Dive Insight:
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 retailers. The videos themselves are fairly rudimentary, being based off of product images, but the one-click aspect of the 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 skin care 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 retailer 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 brand 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.
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.
