How Amazon turned its Thursday Night Football into a two-pronged pitch to capture ad dollars

As the NFL season and vacation shopping season both begin, U.S. marketers are committing more budget plan to Amazon’s advertisement stock.

Moms and dad Colgate-Palmolive invested $1.51 billion on marketing in the very first 6 months of 2026 alone, according to SEC filingsThe tooth paste maker hasn’t run a Super Bowl advertisement in 7 years, and its sports marketing activity mostly focuses on a Madison Square Garden sponsorship for Big East March Madness. And yet, it’s all in on football on Amazon.

“It enables us to reach customers through their whole journey,” stated Kim McCormack, senior supervisor, incorporated marketing for Colgate Total. As part of an effort to reach more youthful male customers, it’s been running a project including Amon-Ra St. Brown of the Detroit Lions throughout Colgate’s Brand Store and Amazon Fire television home screen slots, along with Amazon Prime Video, consisting of TNF.

Following a preliminary collaboration throughout the 2025 football season, Colgate Total decided to re-up ahead of the present season. That project included Atlanta Falcons’ running back Bijan Robinson and drove purchase rates up by 8 times, doubled top quality searches and assisted brand name awareness boost of 3%, and a helped advertisement awareness boost of 5%, per a research study carried out in 2015 by Lucid.

“Leveraging Amazon information to be able to retarget customers who have actually seen our TNF area and reveal them contextually pertinent possessions on the retail platform to additional drive them down the funnel … is really crucial to us,” stated McCormack. She decreased to state just how much Colgate was investing in Amazon Prime.

It’s simple to forget the concerns marketers and purchasers– concerned about streaming problems or audience unwillingness– had when Amazon primary step into the sports streaming arena in 2022-2023Those issues have actually mainly been quashed. “Consumers are well past the difficulty of streaming and the fragmentation of sports on alternate platforms,” stated one holdco media purchaser, who exchanged sincerity for privacy.

That’s substantiated in its viewership figures. Prime Video’s stream of the Steelers-Browns match on Oct. 1 was the most-watched week 4 video game in the history of its protection, notching up a 19% greater audience than 2025’s week 4 Seahawks-Cardinals video game, according to Nielsen Big Panel information.

Marketers have actually captured on. Prime Video has actually charted a 6% boost in TNF marketers up until now this season, and given that 2022 it’s brought over 80 brand names brand-new to TNF, and 33 brand-new to NBA protection (which began in 2015)– along with 54 brand names brand-new to Amazon itself, through live sports– according to remarks made by Billy Davis, Amazon’s head of United States live sports sales, at Advertising Week previously this month.

Media purchasers stated the platform’s mix of stock, information and targeting abilities have actually made it an uncomplicated sell to customers. “Their sales pitch has actually definitely worked,” stated Adam Schwartz, svp, director of nationwide broadcast, sports media, at Horizon Media.

For non-endemics, it has actually acted as a “entrance” to Amazon’s larger advertisement network. Joe O’Connor, senior director of development and development at Tinuiti, stated that marketers had actually frequently utilized TNF, and other Amazon sports homes, to “evaluate” the platform’s abilities– before increasing the media dollars they handle through its DSP to other locations. As an outcome, Tinuiti customers were set to increase their Amazon DSP costs this year, he included.

Endemic brand names, nevertheless, are less most likely to have sports activations running in other classifications– and most likely to sweat the information of advertisement efficiency. To convince them, Amazon officers have actually highlighted Prime as a way to link sales information with advertisement direct exposure, while accessing sports stock without the requirement to go through television upfronts settlements.

“TNF is frequently a considerable nationwide media add-on, offering brand names a method to extend into nationwide sports without the considerable in advance dedications generally related to conventional broadcast networks,” stated Luke Fowler, vp at KSM Media.

Amy McDevitt, head of sports brand name collaboration at Amazon Ads, informed Digday the business is actively promoting full-funnel media purchases to marketers of both stripes. “Their projects can be far more impactful and efficient, if they include several sports if they include upper and lower funnel stock,” she argued.

TNF is “vital cultural visit watching in a lot of cases, solves to the heart of homes throughout the nation,” stated Darren D’Altorio, svp paid media at Wpromote.

D’Altorio stated TNF, in addition to other Amazon sports residential or commercial properties like its NBA protection, were driving a boost in costs amongst Wpromote customers. Brand names that offered on the platform often utilize Amazon’s retargeting capabilities, while the protection’s avenue to middle America makes it appealing to marketers that do not.

“Those 2 paths have actually been a winning mix for brand names, both endemic and non-endemic, which is driving development for us,” he stated.

The truth that Amazon Prime customers consist of customers that decide out of other streaming services for expense factors implies the platform grants marketers access to a possibly hard-to-reach constituency, stated KSM’s Fowler.

It’s a point echoed by McDevitt. “We have a special worth proposal, because, whether you’re going to continue enjoying TNF weeks 4, 5 or 6, you’re still going to wish to get your diapers and razors by tomorrow,” she stated.

In general, TNF’s positioning is showing type in Amazon’s efforts to lure endemic marketers to include incremental advertisement dollars– and raise the ceiling on what they’re prepared to invest with the platform.

That deal will not be as efficient for sellers without a nationwide existence, or which intend to offer items that normally need more research study and preparation than oral products, kept in mind Horizon Media’s Schwartz.

“It definitely works for a great deal of brand names, however it’s not going to work for every brand name,” he stated. “There’s a great deal of waste if you purchase Thursday Night Football, and it’s just actually benefiting you when in those in those particular areas that your item is offered.”

In the meantime, it’s assisting Amazon considerably in its efforts to take it to the home, as it were.