The creative genius behind Amazon’s world beating advertising - Jo Shoesmith
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
Jo Shoesmith, Amazon's Chief Creative Officer, returns to discuss how one of the world's largest brands creates advertising that connects emotionally and endures over time. (01:21) She reveals key learnings from transitioning from agency to brand side, emphasizing how this shift provided crucial perspective on client challenges and business realities. The conversation explores Amazon's strategic approach to long-term creative campaigns, their commitment to running ads for 3-5 years, and how they balance scale with agility in the AI era. (10:33) Shoesmith shares insights on why Amazon invests heavily in traditional media despite being a digital platform, and how they create right-brained storytelling that resonates across generations.
- Main themes: Long-term creative strategy, the power of consistency in advertising, transitional insights from agency to client side, and creating emotionally resonant storytelling that transcends generational boundaries
Speakers
Jo Shoesmith
Jo Shoesmith serves as Chief Creative Officer at Amazon, where she oversees creative strategy across the company's diverse portfolio including Prime, Alexa, retail events, and emerging health offerings. She transitioned from agency-side work to lead Amazon's central creative function, managing both internal teams and external agency partnerships. Under her leadership, Amazon has achieved exceptional creative recognition, earning 5.9-star ratings on System1's database and winning Christmas advertising three out of the last five years.
Jon Evans
Jon Evans is the host of Uncensored CMO and CEO of System1, a marketing effectiveness company. He has extensive experience in marketing leadership roles and is known for his research-driven approach to advertising effectiveness. Evans has won a Cannes Lion for his work on a Lucozade campaign featuring boxer Anthony Joshua, demonstrating his expertise in emotional storytelling and brand building.
Key Takeaways
Embrace Long-Term Creative Strategies
Amazon deliberately creates campaigns designed to run for 3-5 years, contrasting with the industry's obsession with constant change. (10:33) Shoesmith explains this approach requires creating stories compelling enough to watch repeatedly, similar to favorite movies people rewatch on flights. This strategy creates a higher bar for storytelling quality while allowing brands to benefit from the "wear-in" effect, where familiarity breeds preference rather than contempt. The consistency dividend compounds over time, with campaigns becoming more effective in their second, third, and fourth years.
Simplify Stories for Maximum Impact
Effective 30-second advertising requires ruthless simplification, focusing on one clear character journey rather than "kitchen sink" approaches. (08:21) Shoesmith emphasizes that the industry often overwrites for limited time, creating confusion about whose journey audiences should follow. Amazon's approach involves identifying the simplest expression of a story, building distinctive brand assets into the narrative, and partnering with directors who understand their voice. This creates emotional investment in characters within seconds, which is the fundamental challenge of short-form advertising.
Transition Insights Reveal Client Realities
Moving from agency to client side provides humbling perspective on creative's role within broader business priorities. (01:22) Shoesmith learned that creativity becomes one of many brand functions rather than the primary product, and clients aren't being "not brave enough" when rejecting ideas – they're considering complex operational and business implications. Understanding trade-offs, such as how packaging changes could disrupt Amazon's 24-hour delivery promise, transforms how creative professionals approach problem-solving and client relationships.
Right-Brain Storytelling Drives Connection
Amazon's creative success stems from emphasizing right-brain elements: unfolding stories, cultural references, characters with agency, humor, dialogue, and music. (08:50) This approach mirrors entertainment industry storytelling, recognizing that Amazon operates in both commerce and entertainment. Rather than left-brain features like fast cuts, multiple characters, and text-heavy messaging, their work focuses on creating emotional investment through traditional narrative techniques. This entertainment-focused approach helps audiences fall in love with characters within the compressed timeframe of advertising.
Production Reveals Authentic Stories
The creative process should remain flexible to discover authentic stories during production rather than rigidly adhering to initial concepts. (26:16) Shoesmith shares examples where pre-production interviews revealed deeper truths – like Amazon's Indian fulfillment center campaign shifting from celebrating powerful delivery women to honoring mothers' sacrifices for their children. This openness to story evolution, combined with casting and collaboration, often surfaces more compelling narratives than original scripts. The key is maintaining curiosity about what the real story might be rather than forcing predetermined concepts.
Statistics & Facts
- System1 research found that 93% of ads from the last three years feature Gen Z, with 48% having them as lead characters, despite Gen Z representing only 25% of the population and 17% of spending. (17:29) This reveals the advertising industry's obsession with youth demographics.
- A major international drinks brand retested 50 pre-COVID campaigns after COVID and found that 48 out of 50 had "worn in" rather than worn out, with only two becoming inappropriate due to Russian Winter Olympics sponsorship during the Ukraine conflict. (13:13)
- System1's effectiveness research identified three key ingredients for successful campaigns: emotion, recognizable branding, and consistency over time, with consistency being the biggest differentiator for long-term performance growth. (11:15)
