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Lauren Anderson, head of Amazon Ads<\/span>\u2019 US Brand Innovation Lab, says the future belongs to brands that blend commerce, creators and entertainment into experiences consumers actually value.<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the quieter themes to emerge from Cannes Lions this year has been the evolution of the platform.<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s Spotify talking about becoming part of culture rather than simply another media channel, retailers such as Albertsons experimenting with creator-led micro dramas, or Amazon weaving together shopping, streaming, entertainment and creators, the industry\u2019s biggest platforms are all heading in a remarkably similar direction. Advertising is becoming less about interruption and more about creating experiences that consumers actively choose to engage with.<\/p>\n As part of The Drum\u2019s All Media is Commerce Media documentary series, we caught up with Lauren Anderson, head of the US Brand Innovation Lab at Amazon Ads<\/span>, to understand how one of the world\u2019s biggest advertising businesses is building an ecosystem where branded content, commerce and entertainment increasingly work together.<\/p>\n For Anderson, the shift starts with a simple principle.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal with every campaign we develop is to really make sure that we\u2019re extending, enhancing, elevating the customer experience,\u201d she says. \u201cInterruption is the opposite of what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n That philosophy reflects how Amazon\u2019s advertising business has matured. Rather than thinking in terms of individual channels, the Brand Innovation Lab can pull together Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, shopping experiences, creators and live activations to build bespoke campaigns around a single customer journey.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re shopping, if you\u2019re listening to music, what experience can we bring to you that just feels like this beautiful add-on and elevation of your natural rhythms and your natural patterns?\u201d she explains. \u201cThat\u2019s the way for it not to feel like an interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes that means solving problems customers never realized they had.<\/p>\n Anderson points to a campaign with Geico that allows customers to obtain an insurance quote directly through Amazon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk sometimes about this idea of answering a problem that a customer hasn\u2019t even thought to ask yet. They\u2019re so thrilled when they get a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n That thinking also underpins Amazon\u2019s growing investment in branded entertainment and sponsorships.<\/p>\n Among the announcements at Cannes was the expansion of Amazon\u2019s pan-Amazon sponsorship program beyond the holiday season, alongside new creator partnerships, including Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really excited to have her joining the Amazon family. We\u2019re excited to figure out really great ways to partner her with incredible brands.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet despite the growing emphasis on creators, streaming and entertainment, Anderson argues marketers shouldn\u2019t lose sight of what they\u2019re actually trying to achieve.<\/p>\n Brands certainly want stronger measurement and clearer evidence of effectiveness, she says, but those conversations are becoming more sophisticated.<\/p>\n <\/miso-explore>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeople want to see results on the other side, but I think the question is, What does performance mean? What does effectiveness mean? What is the time horizon that we\u2019re looking at?\u201d<\/p>\n She points to Amazon\u2019s campaign launching Lexus\u2019s electric vehicle in partnership with Icelandic singer Laufey. While sales mattered, the bigger objective was building a longer-term relationship with consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of brands are really thinking about what the long-term community-building play is. What is it that we\u2019re doing to make sure customers understand that they want to show up in a real, authentic, organic way over many months and years of consistency?\u201d<\/p>\n That helps explain why Amazon\u2019s Brand Innovation Lab increasingly looks for clients willing to experiment rather than simply execute.<\/p>\n \u201cThe word that comes to mind immediately is openness,\u201d Anderson says when asked what makes a great client. \u201cBrands who are willing to go bigger, who are willing to see things in a different way \u2013 those are the ones that make really great partners.\u201d<\/p>\n The examples span everything from Nespresso\u2019s collaboration with The Weeknd around its Samra Origins coffee to a Pet Armor campaign that used AI-generated personality profiles to help shelter dogs find new homes, quadrupling one shelter\u2019s single-day adoption rate.<\/p>\n Every campaign is built differently.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do a variety of different things with a variety of different partners depending on what the brand is looking to do. The beauty of having a canvas like Amazon\u2019s is that there really is so much at our disposal.\u201d<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean using every available touchpoint. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to just throw everything at it. The goal is to say what is actually going to enhance and refine the customer message.\u201d<\/p>\n For Anderson, successful branded entertainment has always been less about product placement than authenticity.<\/p>\n \u201cCustomers have never rejected brands inside content,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat they reject is an unnatural integration of brands.\u201d<\/p>\n That distinction matters as more advertisers look to creators, premium entertainment and streaming platforms to reach audiences.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your brand doesn\u2019t naturally align with that person or with that person\u2019s audience or with their voice, then it\u2019s very difficult to pull off something that feels real.\u201d<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence is also beginning to reshape how those campaigns are created, although Anderson is careful not to overstate its role.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat AI allows us to do is succeed faster and fail faster. It accelerates our ability to personalize and respond.\u201d<\/p>\n The creative spark, however, remains human. \u201cA piece of clay or a piece of marble in my hands versus Michelangelo\u2019s hands is very different. You still need the auteur. You still need the creative spark.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest shift Anderson sees isn\u2019t technological at all.<\/p>\n While much of Cannes focused on AI, she believes the industry\u2019s future lies in creating experiences that bring people together.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think experiences are a trend. I actually think that\u2019s a deep-seated soul desire.\u201d<\/p>\n If AI makes digital interactions easier, she argues, it may also make genuine human connection more valuable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe growth of AI is going to drive even more the combination of people becoming far more conversant in that technology, but also really yearning for that human togetherness.\u201d<\/p>\n For a company that started life selling books, it\u2019s a striking evolution. Amazon Ads<\/span> is no longer simply helping brands reach shoppers. Increasingly, it\u2019s helping them become part of the experiences customers were already looking for in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thedrum.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lauren Anderson, head of Amazon Ads\u2019 US Brand Innovation Lab, says the future belongs to brands that blend commerce, creators and entertainment into experiences consumers actually value. One of the quieter themes to emerge from Cannes Lions this year has been the evolution of the platform. Whether it\u2019s Spotify talking about becoming part of culture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2476694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[475285,487399,23032],"class_list":["post-2476693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-cannes-lions","tag-commerce-media","tag-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Why-Amazon-thinks-every-platform-is-becoming-an-entertainment-platform.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2476693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2476695,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476693\/revisions\/2476695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Want to go deeper? 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