When Amazon was tasked with releasing its Echo smart speaker which is enabled by Alexa, their AI assistant, into the Indian market, it might have seemed like a gargantuan mission. For one, smart speakers weren’t all that popular in the pragmatic mind-sets of the everyday Indian. Besides, those who identified as tech geeks or early adopters most likely already owned products from competitor brands like Google and Apple. So not only did they need to spread awareness about the uses of a new class of products but also be identified as the premier choice.

Based on a survey, they identified that their most probable target groups primarily used AI for streaming music and YouTube was the most used platform in India for doing the same. This helped them design a campaign that revolved around the penchants of the audience. They had to first identify the songs that were most sought after by them and then to entice them with an ad interesting enough that it would stop them from clicking on that alluring skip button. They did this by creating an experience through the ad individual to each song instead of shamelessly plugging in their product. They created over 1700 pre-rolls for ads that would show an Amazon Echo device asking Alexa to play the song that had been requested, thus creating a fresh encounter with each one making it seem interactive rather than repetitive.

Recognizing their Target audience and their choices and capitalising on trending songs and artists gave Amazon an upper hand in planning an inventive ad campaign that they could fit into a shoestring budget. This is a great example of how understanding your customers and designing an ad campaign around them can do wonders for your brand.