Massive, internally-produced originals such as “Lord of the Rings” should sit alongside acquired content and aggregated channels and content to drive usage of the Prime Video platform, says Kelly Day, VP of international for Prime Video at Amazon.
That spin on aggregation echoes the ‘flywheel effect’ that Amazon executives regularly refer to, meaning the way that content and e-commerce businesses drive each other.
“Over the last few years, we’ve invested in a lot of big titles – ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Citadel,’ ‘Jack Ryan’ – and these titles really resonate with our Prime customers all over the world, and we see these working in almost every country around the world. That’s really what brings people into Prime Video. And then the opportunity is, once we have [viewers] engaged with our platform, going out and seeking [third party] content, whether that is ‘Yellowstone,’ ‘The Last of Us, ‘Barbie’ or ‘Super Mario Brothers,’ They’re really engaging with that marketplace person once we have them come into the fold,” said Day, speaking at the APOS media and entertainment conference in Indonesia on Wednesday.
At the same time, Day said that Prime Video has invested in 280 originals in 25 countries since the beginning of 2022.
“We’re really focused on trying to provide a very personalized and engaging experience so that when you come in to find video, you’re always going to find something that works for you […] we don’t care if that is something that we’ve produced and we create or if it’s something that one of our partners creates.”
Without specifically arguing in favor of further industry consolidation, Day pointed to Prime Video’s role as an aggregator and platform for FAST (free ad-supported Television) channels.
The last few years have been incredible. For consumers there has never been a better time. There’s more selection of amazing content available all over the world from lots of different services. [..] I think the challenges is that it is a little bit of overwhelming, there’s so much content available, so many services to choose from, that we start to see in certain places in the world, a little bit of consumption fatigue.”
Day said that comes from delivering a great selection – originals, acquired and aggregated – using an app that is simple to use and makes it easy for consumers to add channels, and single billing.
She expressed great confidence about growth in Asia, where the home shopping service is not universal and where the Prime Video service operation is still relatively new. For that the local content expansion is expected to be helpful.
“In India and Japan, local content really matters,” said Day. “We don’t want Prime to be a homogenized service, but a local one.”
“We’ve seen Korean content just continue to become more and more popular. And so, we really want to continue to find ways to bring great Korean drama, all of our customers around the world.”
Day added a layer of detail to last week’s announcement that Prime Video will add an advertising supported tier in some territories. She said that current plans see that launch in nine territories in 2024.
