SOCIAL
New Amazon ad features are trying to court non-endemic brands

Amazon’s advertising evolution to a full-funnel retail media network continues apace.
A small update gives a sense for all the types of advertisers the e-commerce giant is hoping to attract. Earlier this week, agencies and brands noticed that Amazon is beginning to let non-endemic advertisers launch Sponsored Display Campaigns in Amazon — meaning they can run display advertisements on Amazon properties but not rely on reactive criteria like an active search. Instead, if a brand — even if it doesn’t sell on Amazon — wants to get visibility while people are scrolling and shopping on Amazon’s sites and platforms, they can buy a banner based on behavioral targeting.
Amazon officially confirmed this update to Modern Retail — adding that the Sponsored Display units aren’t only for Amazon’s website, but also on other third-party websites Amazon owns like IMDB. “Amazon Ads is continually working to help brands connect with their audiences in new ways and through new channels. Sponsored Display is an important part of this effort, in particular because it makes display advertising accessible for brands of all sizes,” an Amazon spokesperson wrote in a written statement.
The spokesperson went on to note that Amazon had previously announced plans to “extend Sponsored Display to brands that do not sell in Amazon’s store, starting with placements on Twitch, and expanding from there,” at its Unboxed Conference in October. “Today this is available for brands in categories such as travel, hospitality, and entertainment, and their ads can appear on Amazon.com, Twitch, IMDb.com and a multitude of third-party apps and websites,” the spokesperson said.
This certainly isn’t the first move Amazon has made to attract brands not selling Amazon to use its advertising offerings. The company has been making a concerted effort to beef up its demand-side platform, which lets advertisers deploy campaigns across the web as well as video platforms like Prime Video. As Business Insider reported last month, the company has been specifically courting non-endemic players to move ad budget into its DSP, away from major players like The Trade Desk and Google. While for the most part, advertisements on the Amazon app have showcased brands that sell products on the product, already people have started seeing non-endemic services like TurboTax launching sponsored campaigns.
But the big issue for brands trying to advertise on Amazon’s DSP is that it’s both expensive and difficult to navigate. According to Amazon, to use the self-serve DSP platform “typically requires a minimum spend of $50,000.” What’s more, for a brand to use the DSP itself would require an internal team that is able to navigate the platform, which requires its own set of expertise. That leaves smaller brands to either work with an agency that has access to the DSP or not use it at all.
But Amazon has been slowly opening up more accessible ways for non-seller brands to advertise. According to Destaney Wishon, CEO and co-founder of the agency BetterAMS, Amazon first started testing out non-endemic sponsored displays to Twitch. But, she said, “that was limited compared to Amazon’s other audience.”
Now, the company is opening it up to other properties — namely its own website and app. For example, non-endemic advertisers are able to buy a placement on a display unit on listings near where customer reviews live, said Wishon.
This development seems like a clear play to bring more smaller- to medium-sized brands into Amazon’s advertising platform. “DSP wasn’t made for the mass market,” said Kevin Weiss, vp of retail media at Skai. As he sees it, this move makes it much easier (and cheaper) for brands of all sizes to participate in more top-of-funnel advertising campaigns. “Sponsored display is set up in such a way that it’s easier [for brands] to click in,” Weiss said.
Indeed, Joe O’Connor, senior director of strategic Amazon marketplace services at Tinuiti, described sponsored displays as “DSP light.” “There are not as many levers you need to turn to get a campaign active,” he said. “It’s simpler to manage.”
That said, everything from Amazon is about getting people sucked into its flywheel. “It’s probably going to be a stair step for Amazon with non-endemic advertisers to spend more on DSP,” said Skai’s Weiss. That is, if a smaller brand runs a successful display campaign on Amazon properties — it will likely begin seeking out other ways to spend that only increases its reach.
All this is happening amid a backdrop of increasingly more sophisticated ad products from Amazon. For example, Amazon began porting some of its DSP capabilities into its overall Ad Console. What’s more, the company is increasingly pushing its Marketing Cloud as a tool for larger advertisers to upload audiences and better target new ones.
“Amazon seems to be deploying a very comprehensive suite of tools and capabilities,” said Weiss. “Sponsored Display is just one of the breadcrumbs of where Amazon is going.”
The ultimate goal, it seems, it show that Amazon has better advertising products connect top-of-funnel to bottom. While brands can advertise on DSP platforms like The Trade Desk and Google, those businesses aren’t sitting on conversion data that can inform contextual targeting.
“Amazon is trying to sell the value of their upper-funnel network [and connect that to] the bottom-of-the-funnel insights,” BetterAMS’s Wishon. And that could be a winning combination as online advertising becomes more competitive. “The Trade Desk doesn’t have audience insights with purchase history,” she said.
Amazon news to know
- Ahead of its earnings, Amazon revealed that its delivery network has reached its fastest speed ever and said it’s focused on further building out its same-day delivery service.
- Amazon is in the midst of its biggest grocery overhaul since it acquired Whole Foods. Bloomberg reports that big changes are coming, both to its retail stores and to its grocery warehouses.
- CNBC dove into the dark and mysterious world of black-hat services that claim to give third-party sellers insider intel and help with numerous issues — for a fee.
What we’ve covered
SOCIAL
The North Face Delivered Jacket Via Helicopter After Viral TikTok Complaint

- Popular apparel brand The North Face posted a crazy marketing stunt on TikTok recently.
- In a video, they delivered a rain jacket to a woman at the top of a mountain in New Zealand via helicopter.
- The woman had complained in a viral TikTok that her waterproof jacket got soaked in the rain.
The North Face pulled an elaborate marketing stunt on TikTok and delivered some rain gear via helicopter to a woman in New Zealand, whose complaint about the brand went viral on the platform.
Jenn Jensen posted a TikTok video on November 17 showing herself on a hiking trail in the rain where she’s soaked whilst wearing a rain jacket sporting The North Face logo.
“I’ve got a bone to pick with North Face,” Jensen says in the video which has racked up over 11 million views. “I bought this ‘rain jacket’ a couple of days ago and the tag for the advertising said that it’s waterproof. Well listen, I’m 100% sure that it’s raining outside and I’m soaking wet.”
She added: “Listen… I don’t want a refund. I want you to redesign this rain coat to make it waterproof and express deliver it to the top of Hooker Valley Lake in New Zealand where I will be waiting.”
She tagged The North Face’s TikTok page in her caption. In one comment a user named @timbrodini wrote: “*Northface has left the conversation.”
The popular outdoor clothes brand made their own TikTok video in response to @timbrodini’s comment in which they said: “We were busy express delivering @Jenn her jacket at the top of mountain.”
In the TikTok video, a North Face employee can be seen grabbing a red jacket from one of its physical stores and then hopping onto a helicopter where he’s flown out to New Zealand. The man then jumps out of the helicopter at the top of the mountain and runs out to throw the jacket to Jensen who is waiting.
She says “thank you” at the end of the video, which has also gone viral and gained 4.1 million views.
Jensen then made a follow up video on her page explaining that The North Face’s marketing team saw her video and wanted to make “amends.” She said they flew her out by helicopter to the top of a mountain in New Zealand to give her new rain gear.
“At this point the ultimate test will be if the new rain gear they gave me at the top of that mountain will hold up to the very high bar that North Face has now set for themselves,” she concluded at the end of the video.
Some users speculated whether her original video was also a part of the marketing stunt but Jensen responded that she “turned down” the opportunity to be paid for the company’s follow up video.
“I’m not an influencer, I was just a disappointed customer.”
The marketing strategy appears to be a new way for brands to connect with customers by showing their care whilst also providing an entertaining video on social media.
The North Face seems to be following the steps of the Stanley cup brand which recently went viral after gifting a woman a new car. The woman’s own car had burnt down, but in a TikTok video she showed that her insulated Stanley cup had survived the car fire and that the ice inside hadn’t even melted.
SOCIAL
U.S. Judge Blocks Montana’s Effort to Ban TikTok in the State

TikTok has won another reprieve in the U.S., with a District Judge blocking Montana’s effort to ban the app for all users in the state.
Back in May, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation to ban TikTok outright from operating in the state, in order to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China. There’s no definitive evidence that TikTok is, or has participated in such, but Gianforte opted to move to a full ban, going further than the Government device bans issued in other regions.
As explained by Gianforte at the time:
“The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and collect their personal, private, and sensitive information is well-documented. Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.”
In response, a collection of TikTok users challenged the proposed ban, arguing that it violated their first amendment rights, which led to this latest court challenge, and District Court Judge Donald Molloy’s decision to stop Montana’s ban effort.
Montana’s TikTok ban had been set to go into effect from January 1st 2024.
In issuing a preliminary injunction to stop Montana from imposing a full ban on the app, Molloy said that Montana’s legislation does indeed violate the Constitution, and “oversteps state power”.
Molloy’s judgment is primarily centered on the fact that Montana has essentially sought to exercise foreign policy authority in enacting a TikTok ban, which is only enforceable by federal authorities. Molloy also noted that there was a “pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment” within Montana’s proposed legislation.
TikTok has welcomed the ruling, issuing a brief statement in response:
We are pleased the judge rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.
— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) December 1, 2023
Montana attorney general, meanwhile, has said that it’s considering next steps to advance its proposed TikTok ban.
It’s a win for TikTok, though the Biden Administration is still weighing a full TikTok ban in the U.S., which may still happen, even though the process has been delayed by legal and legislative challenges.
As I’ve noted previously, my sense here would be that TikTok won’t be banned in the U.S. unless there’s a significant shift in U.S.-China relations, and that relationship is always somewhat tense, and volatile to a degree.
If the U.S. Government has new reason to be concerned, it may well move to ban the app. But doing so would be a significant step, and would prompt further response from the C.C.P.
Which is why I suspect that the U.S. Government won’t act, unless it feels that it has to. And right now, there’s no clear impetus to implement a ban, and stop a Chinese-owned company from operating in the region, purely because of its origin.
Which is the real crux of the issue here. A TikTok ban is not just banning a social media company, it’s blocking cross-border commerce, because the company is owned by China, which will remain the logic unless clear evidence arises that TikTok has been used as a vector for gathering information on U.S. citizens.
Banning a Chinese-owned app because its Chinese-owned is a statement, beyond concerns about a social app, and the U.S. is right to tread carefully in considering how such a move might impact other industries.
So right now, TikTok is not going to be banned, in Montana, or anywhere else in the U.S. But that could still change, very quickly.
SOCIAL
Israeli president tells Musk he has ‘huge role’ in anti-Semitism

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, said in video remaks that Hamas militants ‘have been fed propaganda’ – Copyright POOL/AFP Leon Neal
Israel’s president told Elon Musk on Monday that the tech mogul has “a huge role to play” to combat anti-Semitism, which his social media platform is accused of spreading.
The meeting came after the world’s richest person visited a kibbutz community devastated in attacks by Hamas militants on October 7, and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence officials.
Musk has been criticised over what critics say is a proliferation of hate speech on X, formerly Twitter, since his takeover of the social media site in October 2022.
He has been accused by the White House of “abhorrent promotion” of anti-Semitism after endorsing a conspiracy theory seen as accusing Jews of trying to weaken white majorities.
Israel’s figurehead President Isaac Herzog told him: “Unfortunately, we are inundated by anti-Semitism, which is Jew hatred.
“You have a huge role to play,” he said. “And I think we need to fight it together because on the platforms which you lead, unfortunately, there’s a harbouring of a lot of… anti-Semitism.”
Musk did not mention anti-Semitism in his video remarks released by Herzog’s office, but said Hamas militants “have been fed propaganda since they were children”.
“It’s remarkable what humans are capable of if they’re fed falsehoods, from when they are children; they will think that the murder of innocent people is a good thing.”
On October 7 Hamas militants broke through Gaza’s militarised border into southern Israel to kill around 1,200 people and seize about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials, in the worst-ever attack since the nation’s founding.
Vowing to destroy Hamas in response, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment of targets in Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, that the Hamas government says has killed almost 15,000.
A temporary truce has been in effect since Friday.
– Talk of satellites –
Earlier Monday, Netanyahu and Musk discussed “security aspects of artificial intelligence” with senior defence officials, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Musk and Netanyahu held a conversation on X following their tour of Kfar Aza, one of the communities attacked by Hamas.
“We have to demilitarise Gaza after the destruction of Hamas,” Netanyahu said, calling for a campaign to “deradicalise” the Palestinian territory.
“Then we also have to rebuild Gaza, and I hope to have our Arab friends help in that context.”
Netanyahu told Musk he hoped to resume United States-mediated normalisation talks with Saudi Arabia after Hamas’s defeat and “expand the circle of peace beyond anything imaginable”.
The war stalled progress towards a Saudi-Israel normalisation deal, and in early November Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler denounced the conduct of Israeli forces fighting Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said his country had reached an understanding in principle on the use of Starlink satellites, operated by Musk’s company SpaceX, in Israel and the Gaza Strip “with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Communications”.
Starlink is a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations, or areas that have had normal communications infrastructure disabled.
In September, Netanyahu urged Musk “to stop not only anti-Semitism, or rolling it back as best you can, but any collective hatred” on X.
Musk said at the time that while his platform could not stop all hate speech before it was posted, he was “generally against attacking any group, no matter who it is”.
X Corp is currently suing nonprofit Media Matters on the grounds that it has driven away advertisers by portraying the site as rife with anti-Semitic content.
Musk has also threatened to file suit against the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, over its claims that problematic and racist speech has soared on the site since he completed his $44-billion takeover.
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