Peter Vs. Vaughn (2:24)

Yeah, Sree, before we get to that, I'll just say to our audience, please do follow us on your preferred podcast platform. If you're on Apple or Spotify, make sure you actually follow us because that makes our podcast more findable by industry contemporaries who are looking to be educated and entertained. Yes, Sree, we were very fortunate. For this interview that we're about to share with everybody, we got to speak with Wayne Purboo, who's the vice president of video advertising for Amazon Ads. He's based out of Toronto. I know he's a friend of yours. You've known him for a couple of years, I think. I met him last year at Cannes Lions. But it's a, it's a wide ranging conversation, a very, a very personal one. Yeah, sure, we traded a couple of barbs over the Yankees and the Dodgers, but I think everyone who listens this is really going to enjoy the conversation. So without further ado, let's get to our conversation with Wayne down in Nashville, Tennessee.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (3:34)

Wayne, welcome to the CPG guys. How you doing today?

Wayne Prabhu (3:37)

Good, thank you for having me.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (3:38)

We are so excited to be here at Unbox 2025 in Nashville. We appreciate you taking time out of the event to sit down with us and talk about what's going on and everything that's been changing. It's been a phenomenal week and we're excited to get to some questions we have for you.

Wayne Prabhu (3:54)

Sound good? Sounds great. I'm excited for the talk.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (3:56)

All right, so I'll kick it off. Wayne, but you've been in media tech and now advertising at Amazon. Can you walk us through your journey, your professional career and how you landed in the CPG advertising intersection along with what does your current role at Amazon advertising look like? What are the core responsibilities and the strategic levers you focus on driving the business?

Wayne Prabhu (4:18)

All right, how much time we have?

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (4:20)

You got as much as you want.

Wayne Prabhu (4:23)

Well, it's, it's crazy to think, but I'm 30 years plus now in sort of tech and media and you know, started very early. I'm, I'm mostly a startup guy. My whole career has been mainly startups. Unfortunately been a part of three significant exits and came to Amazon just to help with a problem around adding making videos more shoppable. And how do we make shopping on, on Amazon more entertaining, Help customers make better purchase decisions. Videos are great for helping customers make great purchase decision, you know, because you can, you know, you can buy a glass and you know how big that glass is because you can see a creator holding that glass. Just simple things like that. We talk a lot about swirl videos where creator is walking and just does a quick twirl to show how a dress will flow. And our shoppers really want to see that side of it. It's not enough to look at an image or retext. You can't get a feel for the product. And what we are seeing is that as customers more and more on Amazon include video in their shopping journey, they're making great purchase decisions and they're happier and so they that's kind of the my domain in terms of what I'm trying to do. That manifests itself in a couple of different strategies. One is to.

Wayne Prabhu (6:00)

Globally include video on our product detail pages, search pages, Rufus. Everywhere that customers journey touches, we want to make sure that there is a video for them to consume. So that is probably half of my remit is just managing both the ingress of video. So from selling partners, creators, a lot of customer review videos, which we're very excited about, and managing the ingress of those videos and the placement of those videos across Amazon, we are trying to look for more and more opportunities, more intersections with customer journeys that we can, we can make better by adding a video. It's amazing as you talk about that.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (6:49)

When I think about the impact of.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (6:51)

User generated content, the user videos that for all the work that brands can put onto a pdp, the image carousel, how the influence of people that you've never met will drive you to try a product because you actually see them using it in real life. What a powerful way to help convert.

Wayne Prabhu (7:10)

Yeah, the creators, you know, it's a real movement and it's really about authenticity. They feel that creators give them an authentic point of view of a product and sometimes if they're borderline, a creator video can push them over and get them to the point where they can make a purchase. Especially if it's a creator that they follow. They may follow that creator on social media and now they see that creator again on Amazon and they just feel good about what the creator has done for them in the past. So being able to, to, to sort of fortify those decisions with creator content is really, really important. We see that manifest itself and amplify on our Amazon Live product, our live shopping product. We're really encouraged with both results for consumers, but also the results for brands. Amazon Live in the last 18 months has gone from purely a direct to consumer product to now both direct to consumer and a B2B sorry, a business to business product. And we've seen an explosion of brands that want to use a live creative format with creators to be able to tell their brand story, differentiate their offering. And again, this is using video to help customers make better purchase decisions. The live format just gives you a deeper, more conversational creative that you can tell that brand story.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (8:46)

First of all, welcome to the Secret. You guys. You know I waited three years to get you on the podcast. We've known each other a while now, but I was on the other, I was in the dark side, the same CPG Side. Yeah, I had to leave corporate America and be independent because you're on the show.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (9:01)

Only way me Drive down 45 miles in traffic to get country biscuits and bubbles. This is the highlight of my day. Did you get some, did you try some country biscuits?

Wayne Prabhu (9:11)

You know what, I didn't. But Peter is making me want to drive down after this podcast.

Wayne Prabhu (9:17)

Jams and jellies on the way to the airport.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (9:19)

I guess a little beyond. A little beyond the airport.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (9:22)

But I want to jump into your entrepreneurial background that we kind of just discussed a little bit over here. Also video and telecom background. You also co founded quickflame Media.

Wayne Prabhu (9:34)

That's right.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (9:34)

So pretty solid entrepreneurial background. You work with nimbleness, fast, speed, agility. Now you are working and will be working with some of the largest CPG brands in the world. Not exactly the most nimble and I've spent 30 years in those myself. Right, but, but as you launch release products, those perspectives from being fast and nimble and being at entrepreneurial backgrounds, how's it helping you in a large ecosystem like Amazon?

Wayne Prabhu (10:04)

I still see a lot of blue ocean at Amazon. It's a big company, but I do see a lot of blue ocean, a lot of opportunities and from myself, who's been doing startups for so long, it's just, I love it. I really love coming to Amazon and working on problems and finding opportunities. There's multiple opportunities at Amazon and it's interesting because I've had to think about, you know, some of the skills I picked up building companies and try to apply them to Amazon and apply them to Amazon's customers and so give you a great example. You know, one of the things that you deal with as a startup and they don't do a great job in business school teaching about is scarcity.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (10:50)

Well said.

Wayne Prabhu (10:51)

You know, I, it's so funny. I judge so many MBA programs today and I'm always shocked when I see business cases that don't talk about the really hard trade offs that you have to make as a startup because you never have enough resources. Whether it's people or money or customers, whatever it is, you never have enough.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (11:12)

You just gave me an idea. Actually, Peter and I host the Detail Media program. We are at Cornell every year in the summer this year for a case study. Peter, when we give people a budget of a case study, midway through we're going to go half the budget and.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (11:26)

Say oops, yeah, but that never happens in the real world, does it Sri?

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (11:32)

It happens.

Wayne Prabhu (11:34)

It's really interesting because I always, I always, you Know when I'm judging those MBA case studies, I'm always like, what happens if you only get half your money? And they're just not, they're like, what do you mean? You know what I mean? Like the MBA students like what do you mean only get half the money? I go, well, you're not going to be able to raise the capital that.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (11:53)

This business gets because they never got half the pocket money, they got it all the time.

Wayne Prabhu (11:57)

And so they build these pretty business cases that are not realistic. So, you know, I came to Amazon and you know, the idea of scarcity even at Amazon still exists. We have to make difficult trade offs. And I think that the, the muscle that I have about understanding what is important and need and urgent that needs to be done. Now there's a lot of things that are important, but not everything is urgent. That skill I've applied and you know, for the video product at Amazon and it's interesting because they sought me out specifically because of my entrepreneurial background. They felt that it would take an entrepreneur and someone who understood going from zero to one. You know, I'm not talking about incrementally building something, but really starting from nothing and building something that that's kind of what they tapped into. And so our program, you know, we, we see a lot of opportunities. It's growing very, very fast. It's one of the fastest growing businesses at Amazon and there is a lot of excitement around what we're doing, but for me it's just another startup. It's just I don't have to raise capital.

Wayne Prabhu (13:21)

You know what I mean? I still argue for capital, but it's.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (13:24)

The ROI will matter.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (13:25)

Yeah, you're not sending out turn sheets.

Wayne Prabhu (13:28)

No, I'm not sending out terms. Sometimes I think I am. I mean, I have to defend our business, of course, constantly defend our business.

Wayne Prabhu (13:36)

But there is a belief in our business and there is, you know, it's not. I've been every, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in my startups and you know, having 40 or 50 conversations, you know where you have to begin with. Okay, let me tell you the beginning, you know, for Quick Play. Quick Play is an interesting one because Quick Play was started before the iPhone. It started quick play in 2004 when BlackBerry was super dominant. I'm Canadian by the way, so you're.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (14:07)

Looking at another one didn't support the Blue Jays.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (14:11)

Shame on him.

Wayne Prabhu (14:12)

Peter, you and I are make him.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (14:13)

Up in a shirt and shows.

Wayne Prabhu (14:16)

Let's not get in there. This podcast might be over.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (14:18)

Yeah, I'm yanking 27 championship.

Wayne Prabhu (14:21)

Yes, I know. You know, when I, we started quick play in 2004, the.

Wayne Prabhu (14:28)

BlackBerry was really dominant and we, we started showing premium content on a BlackBerry. In 2004. In 2004. And video. Content, video. And I remember.

Wayne Prabhu (14:43)

Meeting with me at the executives at BlackBerry, you know, we went down to Waterloo and met with them and they said to me, wayne, this isn't gonna work. This is not, there's no way people are gonna watch premium content on a mobile device.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (14:56)

And I call it being ahead of its time.

Wayne Prabhu (14:58)

Well, of course, like, yeah, you know, I, I've gotten thick skin doing all these startups and I always tell, like I, I coach a bunch of startups right now and you know, I always talk to them about the ugly baby discussion. You know, it's your baby but everybody's going to tell you how ugly it is and you know, you got to get used to that. So that was just another ugly baby discussion.

Wayne Prabhu (15:22)

We, you know, Quick Play went on and we got acquired by AT&T in 2016 and we raised 100 and some odd million dollars. And it became much more obvious by 2010. You know, the iPhone launched in 2000, 2006 and it just, everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I'm gonna watch content.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (15:41)

Anyway, but it's a way to consume content.

Wayne Prabhu (15:43)

Yeah. And you know, certainly, you know, internally I still have, you know, I have different projects other than Amazon Live and that I get different things going on. We still have those ugly baby discussions.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (15:54)

Well, with radio faces like ours, we have them.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (15:57)

I got the follow up question of the day. Has anyone told you that CPG has that around people?

Wayne Prabhu (16:04)

I think, I think you get used to it. And I think that what I learned is that even if.

Wayne Prabhu (16:11)

Even if folks agree with you, they'll tell you your baby's ugly to get your valuation down so that they can invest.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (16:18)

That's what they're trying to do.

Wayne Prabhu (16:19)

It's exactly. And I try to. Yeah. And so you got to get used to that ugly baby discussion. Like even at Amazon I've had ideas and they've been shot down and I have that ugly baby discussion and you know, you gotta get thick skin in order to.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (16:33)

It's amazing how much more beautiful baby looks after the term sheet is.

Wayne Prabhu (16:36)

Oh yeah, yeah. That is like everything we love. We love you. And everybody's rosy. They're going to college. Your baby is going to do great.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (16:44)

So Wayne, many people in the CPG space think of Amazon purely as a retail marketplace or channel.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (16:53)

But there's a whole lot to to the actual advertising and media angle. Particularly in an age where linear television, print media are on decline and the opportunity to reach audiences at scale are a big challenge. How do you advise brands to better harness the media plus commerce capability of Amazon, especially with video?

Wayne Prabhu (17:16)

You know, customers are inspired by media, right? Like we've known this, you know, since the soaps like in the 50s and 60s. We've known that customers get inspired by media and video. And all we're, all we're really discussing is how does that manifest itself in the Amazon marketplace? How? Because it's not a new muscle for the customer. Customers are doing it, they continue to do it, they do it off Amazon, they do it on Amazon. And so brands need to understand that we are going to continue to give them more and more opportunities to inspire customers through video on Amazon.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (17:59)

So when I jump into that video, so the advertisers, I think customers is one piece. They obviously love video. Congratulations on all the success on video. When I wear the hat of a CPG band or agency that does the advertising behalf of the CPG brand, video hasn't been the highest priority. So you're clearly making mistakes in your eyes. Since you literally come from the space. You have a history of being an entrepreneur in the space. What are some common mistakes brands and agencies, AKA advertisers are making in the video space that you've seen?

Wayne Prabhu (18:36)

A lot of times the videos that brands create do not answer a customer problem. So if you think about, you know, if you walk package from the customer and you start to think about why would a customer watch this video? They don't oftentimes. It's just a list of features. It doesn't talk to the customer problem that you're solving. And the best videos that we have that customers really love, it directly addresses a problem. A lot of the work we're doing with Rufus now we've been experimenting with using. I have studios in New York and we create content, we create videos for both our internal purposes as well as brands. And a lot of what we're doing is looking at the questions that customers are asking Rufus and where we don't have a video producing videos to address those crossroads. And so I would encourage brands, regardless of what their product is to understand.

Wayne Prabhu (19:45)

What is it that customers are asking about that product and developing videos to directly answer those problems.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (19:53)

That's awesome. So the first thought that comes to my mind is awesome that you can use Rufus because search and search history has got to be amazing input to get the videos. Right. But is it different by category? I think of daps and faucets as an example. It's really features but then I think a skincare and beauty, everything from unboxing the regimen, usage outcomes, all of those are going to matter. Those are all completely different videos. Then in food ingredients GLP1 this is what is on people's mind. So is it different by category?

Wayne Prabhu (20:28)

It's very, it's different by Asin. You know I think yeah, I think every product needs to have three or four videos, not just generalized product videos which I think is what we get a lot of which is you know they've basically just taken their feature seat and created a video. It's almost as if they just fed it to Sora or something like that. But I think you got to go beyond that and, and ask yourselves what are the best, the most important questions that customers ask? You know, if it's a mobile phone battery life, very important one, very, very important one. Create a video that explains the battery life. That that's what I mean by being very intentional. That's consumer.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (21:12)

I don't think I can still find videos that talk about battery life and.

Wayne Prabhu (21:16)

And a lot of with what's interesting about it. If you think about some of the, you know, the producers of mobile devices, one of the things they concentrate on, they spend you know, countless amount of engineering on is battery life and it's. And the reason they work on it so much because they know it's important to the customers for some reason that isn't translating into the product videos that they create. And so a lot of what I've been coaching brands is to be very, very intentional. The, the other reason that we want brands to be intentional about it is because then we have more videos for Rufus. Right? Because Rufus, Rufus doesn't get the question the generalized features of a mobile device. It doesn't get that it gets much more detailed requests and so we need much more detailed videos that walk backwards.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (22:09)

From a customer problem.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (22:11)

So then thinking about the components of success for CPG brands, are there metrics beyond typical lower funnel roas high roas new brand that brands should be paying more attention to especially within video. Like what are the metrics that you recommend they focus on to help them define success?

Wayne Prabhu (22:33)

Yeah, there's a number of high value actions that customers can take both during the video, you know, being, you know, liking the video, things like that they can watch the full length of the video. So duration did they watch the first five seconds, did they watch the entire Video, those are all great indicators. And then there's a bunch of post consumption hps. Do they go to the brand store? Do they do a search for that brand? There's a whole bunch of new to brand metrics as well. And so there is, you know, video is really full funnel, you know, a lot of consideration issues. It's because of, you know, the content they're reading about a product has not yet satisfied all the questions they have. And that's why building more intentional video can help them through that consideration.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (23:22)

What about brands are they asking you? Do you feel they're asking the right questions about metrics? Do they get the plot? Are they interested in full funnel measurement? Is it more outperformal? Because traditionally video is thought of as outperformance, especially with the largest range in the world.

Wayne Prabhu (23:38)

Yeah. And I think it's really interesting because it's not just, you know, video has been upper funnel. Amazon, you know, we've been great at lower funnel. Like we, we own lower funnel, you know, and conversion. And so there is a bit of a bridge that we are attempting to build with video between upper funnel and lower. We'll always deliver all those lower funnel metrics that people expect. It's always interesting when I talk to a brand and we start to show some of the upper funnel metrics that are more brand building that they get excited about as well. Now there's, there's always a structural issue, as you know, you guys know coming. Because brand building is typically not part of the same budget as conversion or sales. Right. And so there's a structural challenge in, in sort of preaching video to some of the brands that are on Amazon to tap into both budgets for some of these executions.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (24:39)

The one thing, the one thing I'll tell you, Peter, the budget divide. It's all media at the end of the day. Yeah. You and I have strong opinions on this express on the show. Any of our guests. Right. The fact that it comes from lower funnel trade literally makes no sense. And I think long time ago it's already been declared by asp, the Financial Accounting Board in New York working with price for house 2016. Like 87% of all advertising, what's lower funnel really belongs precise numbers. 87% belongs in upper funnel and media. How would I know? Because I work 2, 10% Johnson Johnson to get that classification. It drives us crazy on the CPG guys for us to hear that unnecessary delight. But that's what politics is about. We'll avoid it. We'll move on. So I want to go to different video, different formats of video. Right. There's the everyday video product that we just talked about, brand equity building. But there's other forms of video, like streaming influencer, social media. You touch all of those.

Wayne Prabhu (25:42)

Yeah.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (25:43)

Now, are brands really taking advantage and leveraging all of those types of video formats with you on Amazon to fully bring up that story?

Wayne Prabhu (25:52)

Yeah, you know, the. Some brands are. And I'm excited to see it, you know. Yeah. When I. There's some brands that really, especially those that have a great brand, they've got a story to tell. Right. And it's much more than, you know, a product detail sheet. You know what I mean? It's not just a list of features. There's a story I still recall years ago.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (26:15)

I mean, product dimensions aren't good.

Wayne Prabhu (26:18)

No.

Wayne Prabhu (26:20)

No, no, no. You know, I still recall there's a video. It's a long video. It's about 10 minutes long that Tastemade did. And it's a beautiful video. Like, it's. And I. I started watching it just because it's. It's a. It's a large family. They're sitting in Italy, and it's just. It's just gorgeous. They're having an unbelievable meal, Like a meal that we would all love to participate in. And they sit down to have this great meal, and you don't know what this is. It's just a family having a meal. Okay. And it goes on and there's like beautiful music in the background, beautiful sunshine, trees. You can imagine how beautiful this video is. And like, at the very end, it just says San Pellegrin about that.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (27:04)

That was about the experience.

Wayne Prabhu (27:06)

It was just about the experience. There's no words. There's nothing. It's just this wonderful family laughing and eating and just a beautiful scene that we'd all want to participate in. And at the end, then you remember, oh, there's Santa Pellegrino all over.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (27:23)

But that's great, though, because you have sunshine. It's a beautiful scene. It's pretty.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (27:27)

It's a family experience.

Wayne Prabhu (27:30)

The big thing that brands have to remember.

Wayne Prabhu (27:34)

Which video does that other creatives don't. Video creates emotions, and emotions last longer than product detail pages.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (27:45)

Could not agree more.

Wayne Prabhu (27:46)

And so when we talk to them about video, we're talking about much longer attribution windows.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (27:54)

But do you get these discussions from CMOs or do you have to initially appreciate them?

Wayne Prabhu (27:58)

CMOs. I do. They understand this.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (28:02)

But understand is one thing, but asking you is another.

Wayne Prabhu (28:05)

Right. The execution is always. Yeah. And it's. It's it's hard. I understand. And we're working with our data teams to figure out how do we create.

Wayne Prabhu (28:16)

Connective tissue between some of these longer term brand building.

Wayne Prabhu (28:22)

High value actions that customers take and the current moment. And being able to do that is one of the challenges that we're working on.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (28:33)

Which reminds me, do you have a feedback mechanism from customers then I don't leave vans. Customers on video and videos that I put out where they give you feedback on the quality, what they like, which is insurance, what you think about it.

Wayne Prabhu (28:48)

So right now we use a lot of implicit signals from the customer to understand whether they. Well, there's some explicit ones, like they can like it. We're going to give, you know, one of the, one of the mental models that I've given my team to think about is how do we remove the glass, okay, between the customer and the experience so that the customer feels like they're part of that experience. They can give feedback, we can give them feedback and more of a two way conversation about the video. And through that we're able to get, you know, explicit and implicit signals. You know, I mentioned a couple before, like, are they watching it all the way to the end? You know, did they make a purchase after that within some reasonable attribution window? And we've seen that like six months later when a customer has that problem, we've seen them go back and make a purchase.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (29:41)

So six months later, Amazing.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (29:45)

Wayne, for CPG brands, how should they be thinking about moving from particularly video as more upper funnel to really thinking about it as a full funnel approach? So that is really where the puck is going. As a Canadian reference, he doesn't understand.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (30:06)

I watch curling though, World championship at.

Wayne Prabhu (30:09)

Curling, which they don't have on pay.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (30:12)

Per view sort of stuff.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (30:14)

What's the sweet spot for brands to stay as you see it? For them to really start understanding the truthful full funnel value that advertising on Amazon, particularly in your focus area, delivers?

Wayne Prabhu (30:26)

Yeah, I sort of, you know, if we think about a fragmented customer journey where a customer is bouncing around, right. They're on Amazon, they're on social, not even on Amazon. Sometimes they'll be watching a live stream, they'll be going to a product detail page, they'll communicate with Rufus. I think brands need to understand this journey and be able to reinforce that storytelling all over the, all over the place, you know, with some consistent storytelling.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (30:55)

Is the real key to success.

Wayne Prabhu (30:57)

Yeah, because you need to. There's so many products in every category. You need to get customers to understand why you made the investments you did, what is it that makes your product the one they're going to be loyal to? And that's what storytelling helps brands to do. And regardless, you know, I've talked to some CPG guys and they go, yeah, but if it's not. Not the CPG guys, no, they're just generic.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (31:24)

Generic CPU guys, You know, Never heard of them.

Wayne Prabhu (31:28)

They, you know, in some cases, they. They look at, you know, their products, and I think consumers look at their products almost like commodities. Right. Undifferentiated. Yeah. And I think this really gives them an opportunity to differentiate. Like, it's so incredible to me the amount of money that goes into research and development some of these products. And we're not sharing that with the customer.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (31:52)

They're pretty basic information.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (31:55)

Yeah.

Wayne Prabhu (31:55)

And I just. I just. I want to give loan the opportunity to tell that story.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (32:01)

It's not that hard, actually, at the end of the day, which is what I want to jump into next.

Wayne Prabhu (32:05)

Right.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (32:06)

So now you're an advertiser walking in. It's your first time doing a campaign on Amazon. Would you advise them to include video in the marketing books?

Wayne Prabhu (32:15)

Absolutely.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (32:16)

And then if the answer is yes, as you just said, what are some things you've done you absolutely have to nail so that you get the best ROI for doing the campaign.

Wayne Prabhu (32:25)

The videos have to be intentional. You got to think about intentional. Yeah. The videos have to address the main road, you know, speed bumps for a customer.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (32:38)

You know, they're burning pain points.

Wayne Prabhu (32:39)

Exactly. You know, in business school, we talk about pains and gains, right?

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (32:43)

Yes.

Wayne Prabhu (32:44)

What are the pains and gains? And be very intentional with your videos. Address them in the videos so the customers get what they need and they can make, you know, a really good purchase decision.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (32:57)

Again, based on category. That's going to be very different. So you analyze it. When an advertiser comes in, you look at it and then you say, hey, it's this versus that. Do these three things for those categories. But do these seven things or do nothing for somebody else.

Wayne Prabhu (33:12)

Yeah, yeah. And like I said, it's going to be different. It's going to be different in terms of the product. Right. There's different. Different questions that you need to answer for a camera, you know, and even within the camera category, it depends on which camera you're buying. Right. You could be buying, you know, $300 camera. Very different questions than if you're buying a $3,000 camera. And so I think I would absolutely add video. Customers prefer, like, you know, watching a video over reading a lot of Text. And you can convey so much more information about a product and, you know, be very authentic, involve creators, you know, that's where you cross the line between just being educational to also being entertaining.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (34:02)

You know, So I was replacing my podcast microphone from my home studio last week.

Wayne Prabhu (34:06)

Yeah.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (34:07)

And so to do that, I researched what I needed like crazy and probably booked it over 100 ASINs before choosing. Not a single one of them had a product usable with their friend. Your sound. Yeah, sound quality. Because I want to see how far someone's staying from the microphone when they actually speak. How high does it go? How low does it go? I don't want that.

Wayne Prabhu (34:31)

Yeah.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (34:32)

Well, you know, professional podcasters like us, those things matter. We work the overhang, not you and me. The CPG box.

Wayne Prabhu (34:39)

Okay. I, you know, it's, it's so interesting because one of the, one of the added features of doing this with video is this whole concept of complementary products where you can show. Because we barely use any product on its own. You know, there's very few products that we just.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (35:00)

I'll give you a follow up example to what you just said.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (35:03)

Right.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (35:04)

We know being in this business, you have to use block filters. Yeah. Not one of them said I had to use a pop filter. This is bizarre. Drove me crazy.

Wayne Prabhu (35:12)

Yeah. And that's where creators come in. Right. Creators will come and say, hey, I love this mic, but you need these pop filters. You need, like, here's some complimentary things that go really well. That, that is.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (35:24)

Give you the real rail.

Wayne Prabhu (35:25)

Exactly. And that addresses the customer problem. Right. That is much more intentional, much more, you know, much more educational. Valuable to a customer to understand. I need this product, but I need these complementary products as well.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (35:40)

Yeah. Totally get away. And even on the pop filter. I got plenty of info on pop filters, but I couldn't see a single video of it in front of a microphone.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (35:48)

That showed me.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (35:48)

What's the depth? Yeah. How does it look? Is it too big? Does it cover my face?

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (35:53)

So SRI asked you about brands starting out. Should they be looking at video? At the other end of the spectrum, the brands that are very well developed and leveraging Amazon ads. My question is this. Are there particular advanced tactics or experiments that you're seeing the most exciting results from? And brands are really starting to lean in and make them an even bigger part of their overall investment strategy?

Wayne Prabhu (36:25)

You know, the biggest thing that I'm seeing, that I'm excited about is brands are making it fun. They're not really taking themselves too seriously. And, you know, just, I think I'm really excited by brands starting to understand that this is a creative format and customers lean in when they're being entertained and it's educational and they, you know, they feel like, hey, this is a good use of my time. And so I'm excited about, you know, how, how.

Wayne Prabhu (36:56)

Different brands are using the creative format to create experiences on Amazon that are, that are a lot of fun.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (37:02)

But I want to come back to best practice of frameworks on our advertising tools in the ecosystem that already exists that brand should know about. They should be asking you guys when it comes to video streaming that they overlook as they go through the creative process and measurement.

Wayne Prabhu (37:21)

Yeah, I think, you know, for brands who are on a lower budget and are concerned without building some of these videos, they should use our Creative Studio. And you know, today we, the Jay Richmond, my Pierre, did a great job of talking about Creative Studio, all the capabilities that we're building in there to really democratize video creation for brands, you know, so at that end we should, you know, folks should look to use Creative Studios to start to build a library of videos especially to do what I'm asking, which is to be more intentional. This is a real low cost way for them to create, create those videos. And we know those videos work. So that would be, you know, one thing for those that's great to hear who don't have big budgets and, you know, smaller brand. Yes.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (38:16)

Yeah.

Wayne Prabhu (38:16)

A lot of those brands, you know, they have product images and stuff like that and they may even take 360 images. But making it a video is so much more compelling for the customer. So being able to use those tools to do that I think is a, is a really great advance for that particular cohort of selling partners of brands. And then at the high end, it's really about continuing. And really, you know, I always talk to them about you need to leave your R and D out into your videos.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (38:48)

You're making me think of that one. Right. Because historically CPG has never thought of it that way. Your biggest advertiser, cpg. But then customers are hungry to learn about the rd.

Wayne Prabhu (38:59)

Yeah. And it's interesting because we're all customers and we know if we want more, like even if the brand won't tell us, we find a way, we'll find a way. We'll go on Reddit. Right, Exactly. We'll now we're using AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. We're, we're doing it anyway. And you know, brands need to control that narrative. And so I'm Also one platform where.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (39:24)

They shop, it should be. They shouldn't have to go, they shouldn't have to.

Wayne Prabhu (39:28)

And so that's why we're trying to improve the user experience. We're trying to intersect them and make the right video available at the right.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (39:35)

Point in the journey.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (39:37)

So I have the pleasure of the last question and we'll do, looking out towards the future kind of a focus. If we were to go out three to five years, what do you think will be the biggest disruptors that video delivers? Both the CPT advertising but even non endemic advertising. What do you think video is going to be able to deliver to the consumer, consumer for their shopping experiences?

Wayne Prabhu (40:01)

You're talking about non AI. It's easy to sort of fall back and say it's all going to be.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (40:06)

AI, you know, but I think it matters though. I mean AI is the moment of our time, so we don't want to shy away from it.

Wayne Prabhu (40:12)

No. And I think it's going to be pervasive. And so, you know, I think that, and I've spoken about this, I think that there's, there's going to be different modes of shopping. You know, there's still going to be a pretty robust walk in retail. You know, walk in the shopping mall and buy something. I still do that myself. You're still going to have folks who.

Wayne Prabhu (40:42)

Will, you know, use the Internet, Pinterest or Reddit and then come over to Amazon and execute, make a purchase. You're going to have these hybrid experiences where AI is part of, you know, either they're interacting with Rufus or some other AI engine to help them to make that purchase decision. And then I think there's, there's sort of an agentic where it's just agents talking to each other.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (41:06)

Yeah.

Wayne Prabhu (41:07)

To make purchases on your behalf. And there's a great.

Wayne Prabhu (41:13)

There'S a great article at Andreessen Horowitz where they break down the different categories, purchases and they talk about which ones they believe will go to AI first. I don't know if I agree with the whole thing. I'm not saying I agree, but at least it's a mental model for, for thinking about, think about how it could, it could work. And so I think that the, the, the forward leaning is this agentic and how do brands participate? How do they ensure that the agents understand their best, you know, they'll put their best foot forward in this agentic environment. That's, that's tbd, that hasn't been sorted. And I think within the next five years it has to be Sorted or else there's going to be a lot of unhappy customers that are not prepared.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (42:00)

Wayne, Shreen, I greatly appreciate you. Thank you for taking time out of Unboxed to sit down with us and we hope you'll come back and speak with us soon.

Wayne Prabhu (42:07)

Yeah, this has been great. Thank you for letting us.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (42:09)

Depends on how many times you wear a tower shirt.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (42:11)

Yeah, the Dodgers thing covered up underneath my.

Wayne Prabhu (42:14)

I don't know.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (42:15)

I told them your Canadian needs to cover it up.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (42:18)

Okay.

Wayne Prabhu (42:19)

All right. Well, I, I listen, it's one of those things. It was a great series and Dodgers did well. Blue Jays didn't execute. So it's, it's fine. I'm good with it.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (42:29)

It was fantastic.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (42:31)

One out, one out of way. But you know, we Yankees will step back. We'll watch y' all get to double digits. We'll watch the Dodgers. We wish the blue J is the best too.

Wayne Prabhu (42:39)

Yeah. Thank you, Wayne. Thank you.

Unidentified Co-host (likely Sree or Peter's co-host) (42:41)

Thank you, Wayne. This was a pleasure.

Unidentified Interviewer (likely Peter or Sree) (42:42)

Thank you.

Peter Vs. Vaughn (42:44)

Wow, Sree, that was a great interview. What did you think? What's your big takeaway from the conversation we just had with Wayne?

Sree Rajagopalan (42:50)

Well, Peter, some great announcements were made yesterday. Wayne gave us an excellent conversation about how streaming tv, Amazon Streaming TV Prime Video with the capabilities now on advertising, you can actually use AI to optimize not just your spend and the campaign, the keyword searches, but more importantly the creative too. Which means your campaign time can be significantly reduced. For me, the inflection of AI and not having to really know SQL code inside out yet. Choosing to use SQL code if you want great measurement. Win, win, win.

Peter Vs. Vaughn (43:30)

What do you think, Sree? For me it was Wayne was very vocal about advocating for the fact that video with all of the new capabilities, particularly like with sponsored church videos.

Peter Vs. Vaughn (43:46)

And upper funnel awareness, it is truly a full funnel solution and it's available to brands big and small. As you mentioned, with the AI capabilities.

Peter Vs. Vaughn (43:58)

You have to make it a part of your go to market strategy. It fits into every campaign. I think that was my big takeaway. Cherie, as always, thank you for joining me on this journey. Loved our time down at Amazon Unbox this year. Saw so many friends. Hope you checked out our Instagram page. Lots of pictures posted there. Also on LinkedIn. But make sure you're following us on Instagram. TikTok if you're still on Facebook. Absolutely. Check us out there. And we look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of.

Peter Vs. Vaughn (44:34)

The CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye.

Podcast Disclaimer Voice (44:51)

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