Amazon’s Global CCO on Customer Voices Powering Holiday Campaign

If there’s one thing that is certain about the holiday period, it’s the chaos superglued to it. From family visits to finding the right gifts – advertising that speaks to the reality needs to balance that rational, product-driven storytelling with the entertainment consumers desire. It’s why Amazon decided to create a two-pronged strategy.

A sequence of retail films as well as a series of ‘5 Star Theater’ films featuring Benedict Cumberbatch that build upon last year’s concept, which dramatises the company’s reviews. The idea is simple yet packs plenty of punch. Amazon’s global CCO, Jo Shoesmith, says, “Customers are in two different mindsets during the holidays – they are problem-solvers trying to get things done, but they are also seeking moments of joy and connection.” She adds, “‘5 Star Theater’ celebrates the creativity and humanity that emerges from our customer reviews. When someone writes a review so vivid and entertaining, it deserves its own theatrical moment.” Jo explains that it all comes down to honouring the relationship the brand has with customers who trust it enough to share their stories.

The retail films are rooted in those inherently recognisable family moments, snoring uncles and all. Jo tells LBB the insights that drove that direction came from “really listening to how people talk about their holiday experiences. The snoring uncle, the gift panic, the family dynamics, and the transformation of a kid’s room into a gym is one I can attest to.”

She asserts that these instances “aren’t advertising constructs; they are universal truths. What’s crucial is that Amazon shows up as a solution that already fits into these moments, not as an intrusion.” Jo says Amazon isn’t trying to creative new behaviours, but rather to recognise existing ones and showing how they can make them easier
The campaign has launched across multiple markets, including the EU and Mexico, meaning the team had to consider how the work would travel. Humour, Jo says, is “deeply cultural,” but family dynamics and holiday stress are “surprisingly universal.”

For production, the focus was on capturing authentic moments that could resonate across cultures, while allowing for adaptation in casting, setting, and specific product moments. “We learned,” says Jo, “that the emotional truth of a situation like gift-giving anxiety or family gathering chaos translates better than specific jokes or references.” She explains that the key was building campaigns around human experiences that exist everywhere, then letting local teams bring their cultural understanding to the execution.

Last year’s debut of ‘5 Star Theater’ starring Adam Driver was well-received, striking a cultural chord. But what convinced the team at Amazon that it deserved a second act? Jo says the elevation this year came from expanding the emotional range. “Year one was heavily comedy-focused, but customer reviews span the full spectrum of the human experience. This year, we’re celebrating the quietly profound, the unexpectedly moving, and the genuinely life-changing, alongside the hilarious.”

The campaign’s face, Benedict Cumberbatch, certainly feels like a big, very different casting choice, and Jo shares that the suggestion actually came directly from customer feedback on last year’s campaign. “Someone literally suggested him in a comment. It felt like the ultimate expression of our philosophy: customers aren’t just the subject of our campaigns; they are active collaborators in shaping them.”

Viewers may also be surprised to learn the hand that tech had in the formation of the campaign; from the outset, the task was incomprehensibly tall, involving analysing 300 million reviews. “That would take humans about 1,200 person-years,” says Jo. “Our tool, built on AWS bedrock, makes this kind of curation not just possible but repeatable and scalable. But the philosophy remains crucial: we are using AI to discover and amplify human creativity, not replace it.” She describes the tech as the tool that helps them find needles in haystacks, those moments of unexpected brilliance that customers create naturally. From there, human directors, editors, and actors brought those discoveries to life.

The strategic link between the two campaigns, Jo says, is that they are both rooted in the same truth that Amazon exists to make customers’ lives better. “‘5 Star Theater’ proves we’re listening to and celebrating our customers’ voices, and the retail work proves we’re acting on that relationship to solve real problems.

“Together, they create a complete narrative about who we are and why Amazon matters.”

When I ask Jo how she’ll measure the success of the holiday campaign, she answers candidly. “Honestly?” she says, “success is when my mum and sister text me saying they laughed at the ad instead of rolling their eyes. If it passes the family group test, we’ve probably done a good job.”