Next in Media – “Fire TV, Alexa Plus & the Future of Shoppable CTV with Amazon’s Charlotte Maines”

Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Charlotte Maines, Head of Device Advertising, Amazon Fire TV
Date: November 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this live-recorded episode from Amazon Unboxed in Nashville, Mike Shields sits down with Charlotte Maines to explore Amazon’s rapidly evolving device advertising strategy. The discussion covers Fire TV's reach and ad experiences, the next generation Alexa Plus, the future of shoppable connected TV (CTV), Amazon's full-funnel marketing ambitions, and the integration of AI to personalize both content and advertising. Maines offers an inside look at Amazon’s unique assets and their plans for brands to engage consumers across devices and touchpoints.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fire TV’s Global Reach and Advertising Platform

• Massive Customer Base:
  • Fire TV has sold 300 million devices globally, creating a huge, engaged, and logged-in user audience for advertisers.

    “That’s a big footprint. That’s a lot of customers, a lot of valuable Amazon customers who are logged into their devices that brands can talk to.” — Charlotte Maines (00:00, 01:32)

• Customer Journey Starts on the OS:
  • The Fire TV home screen functions as a captive daily portal, similar to classic web portals, providing rich real estate for discovery and advertising.

    “That homepage is almost like the old portals, like the Yahoo of the old days, like there’s just a huge fire hose every day.” — Mike Shields (02:27)

• Ad Opportunity During Content Search:
  • Customers spend an average of six minutes searching for content, an opportunity for advertisers to reach them, regardless of whether they watch with ads.

    “We found that on average it takes customers six minutes to find what they want to watch... that is truly six minutes that you can get in front of a customer whether they go on to watch content that has ads in it or not.” — Charlotte Maines (00:12, 03:00)

2. Evolving Fire TV Advertising: Beyond Tune-In

• Origins & Expansion:

  • Initially focused on promoting media content (tune-in ads, like HBO’s Game of Thrones), the platform now attracts a broader range of brands as budgets move from linear TV to CTV.

• Advanced Targeting & Reach:

  • Incremental reach is a key differentiator: Fire TV ads offer 1.9x more incremental reach than standard streaming buys, and 1.7x more than Prime Video alone.

    “Let me tell you how to get 1.9 times the incremental reach of that buy... attached to Fire TV.” — Charlotte Maines (05:09)
    “And 1.7 times for a Prime Video ad buy. So you’re truly talking to customers that you are not talking to with your in-stream ads.” — Charlotte Maines (11:07)

• Rich, Multi-Format Placements:

  • The “feature rotator”—a prominent, autoplaying video-plus-static placement—occupies significant screen real estate and blends static and video assets.

    “We have this hero placement, we call it the feature rotator... it expands and autoplays a video.” — Charlotte Maines (10:15)

3. Shoppable TV & Alexa Integration

• Voice-First Shoppable Experiences:

  • With Alexa and Fire TV, shopping is evolving to allow seamless in-TV purchases via voice or remote, not just by clicking through screens.

    “We have the ability for you to add to cart or purchase directly from the TV using the remote for your voice.” — Charlotte Maines (08:28)

• Alexa Plus: An “Agentic” AI Future:

  • Alexa Plus is Amazon’s massive leap forward — now powered by an LLM (Large Language Model), functioning as a personalized, conversational AI agent that knows user habits, schedules, and preferences.

    “With Alexa Plus... she is now an LLM-powered, agentic AI experience. So think of any other gen AI or LLM solution you might use, that is what Alexa is.” — Charlotte Maines (06:20)

• Deep User Integration & Brand Opportunities:

  • Alexa is tightly woven into users’ Amazon activity, enabling authentic, in-the-moment brand engagement—“much more considered and specific moments than just sort of a, well, let me just, you know, kind of target a demographic.” (07:30)

• Shoppable CTV’s Many Approaches:

  • Maines highlights the flexibility being built into the ecosystem: “So anything that you could do on an Alexa device, you can do on a Fire TV... we’re not limiting it to requiring remotes... shopping engagement behaviors.” (08:28)

4. Full-Funnel Advertising & Customer Touchpoints

• Amazon’s Complete Funnel Ambition:

  • Amazon isn’t just retail media; its devices and platforms allow performance and branding at all funnel stages—awareness, consideration, conversion—leveraging deep customer data across devices, app, Alexa, and TV.

    “Because of Amazon’s touch points across customers’ lives you are truly able to meet all of your objectives advertising through Amazon... Devices is a huge part...” — Charlotte Maines (12:34)

• Household Ubiquity & Engagement:

  • Fire TV users average 4.2 hours daily on the platform (for TV), with many households also deeply engaged with Alexa (audio and visual Echo devices).

    “Customers go inside. They spend an average of 4.2 hours a day watching Fire TV in the US, hours and hours are spent listening to audio on Alexa devices as well as engaging with the screened Echo devices.” — Charlotte Maines (13:05)

• Sophisticated Omnichannel Targeting:

  • Amazon is able to sequence, retarget, and coordinate creative across Fire TV, in-stream video, Alexa audio, and mobile/app, aiming for seamless delivery matching where consumers are in the funnel.

    “Within... more of the streaming ecosystem are able to turn the dials on that full funnel experience.” — Charlotte Maines (14:12)

5. AI & Automation: Personalization and Creative Enablement

• AI & LLMs Powering Experiences:

  • Large language models are being embedded to drive immediate personalization and real-time customer segmentation for both content and ads.

    “Set customer segments in the old days would take, I don’t know, they could take 48 hours to update... now it happens in real time. Oh, and it happens a hundred times better.” — Charlotte Maines (16:06)

• Gen AI Accelerates Creative Production:

  • For Alexa Audio, brands can generate fully-voiced ads from existing product detail pages and guidance (tone, message) in ~30 seconds, removing production barriers for small businesses and streamlining for large ones.

    “In Alexa Audio for example... they can provide... guidance like tone... press submit and then we go and scrape their product detail page... and within 30 seconds they have an audio ad that... you could run it right then.” — Charlotte Maines (16:39)

• Accessible to All Brands:

  • Both small businesses (without big creative budgets) and large brands (who want creative control and speed) are leveraging these tools.

    “...Their uptake of that audio tool for example is just, is incredible. But... for kind of the bigger brands... these are also very enabling because... it’s something where again they appreciate that we’re not trying to take over... creative aspect.” — Charlotte Maines (17:53)

6. Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Customer Engagement:

  “You are a captive audience with your remote or using your voice to navigate around and literally pick that next thing you’re going to watch.” — Charlotte Maines (02:33)

• On Alexa’s Personal Touch:

  “She knows me, she knows my family, she has our schedule... like, oh my gosh what day is... karate?... She’s like, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to send the stuff until Tuesday.” — Charlotte Maines (07:30)

• On Amazon’s Unique Value:

  “This is just an opportunity to converse with and participate in customers lives in their homes in a way that nobody else can offer.” — Charlotte Maines (13:05)

• On the Future Vision:

  “The vision would be... you’re like, here’s my goals across Amazon and we just go and figure out where and how to deliver it across all of those surfaces in a way that has the most efficient and pronounced reach.” — Charlotte Maines (14:12)

7. Innovative Case Studies

• Auto Industry Example:
  • A custom campaign let users design a car with their remote—choosing interior/exterior features—then delivered a QR code to continue shopping online with their selections preloaded.

    “...We were able to do a custom execution where customers were actually able to use the remote and design a car... and then it resolved in a QR code...” — Charlotte Maines (19:06)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Fire TV’s scale and ad opportunity: 00:00–03:23
• Evolution of Fire TV ad business: 03:38–05:21
• Shoppable TV & Alexa Plus integration: 05:22–08:28
• Shopping mechanics, voice and TV: 08:28–09:39
• Ad formats and effectiveness (feature rotator): 09:58–11:15
• Amazon’s full-funnel vision: 12:14–14:12
• AI and creative automation: 15:18–18:57
• Final takeaways, custom device experiences: 19:06–21:12

Conclusion: Device Advertising as a Centerpiece of Amazon’s Full-Funnel Strategy

Charlotte Maines emphasized that Amazon’s device-based platforms—Fire TV, Alexa, and Echo—are at the heart of Amazon’s promise of a full-funnel solution for advertisers. The range of possibilities, from massive reach on TV to in-the-moment voice commerce (powered increasingly by AI), allows brands unique ways to connect with highly-engaged, authenticated customers at scale and at every stage of the purchase journey.

“We can deliver the full spectrum anywhere from... typical sponsored ads... all the way through to these custom executions on Fire TV and Alexa.” — Charlotte Maines (20:59)

For anyone following the intersection of media, advertising, and technology, this episode provides a valuable playbook for the future of living room engagement—and why Amazon’s platform approach is central to that shift.