Amazon’s ‘It’s On Prime’ Brings Delivery Benefits to ‘Reacher’ and ‘The Boys’

In the latest instalment of the ‘It’s On Prime’ brand campaign, Amazon's brand marketing team and Amazon Studios collaborated to embed the fast delivery capability directly into the Emmy-nominated shows, ‘The Boys’ and ‘Reacher’. The service became an organic – if somewhat surreal – part of the stories, rather than treating the shows like siloed sponsorship opportunities.

“We wanted to show what Prime actually is – one membership that gives you both streaming and fast delivery,” says ​Jo Shoesmith, Amazon’s vice president of global brand and fixed marketing. “By bringing these two worlds together in a playful, literal way, we're able to demonstrate the full value of the membership in a way that feels natural and engaging rather than transactional.” It’s quite the flex for Amazon, which can show its current and prospective customers that its services span great entertainment and the convenience of fast delivery.

Reacher

Since launching in 2023, 'It's on Prime' has become a long-term global brand platform, and the latest spots evolve that platform while remaining true to its core insight that "Whatever you're into, it's on Prime". Jo notes that the execution is more playful this time around, “we're literally dropping delivery drivers into these dramatic worlds.”

The campaign cleverly connects two very different Prime benefits: entertainment and fast delivery and it was strategically essential to showcase how Prime is an interconnected membership experience. “Prime is unique in that it's one membership for both streaming your favourite shows and getting things delivered fast,” Jo explains. “This campaign gave us the opportunity to show that Prime isn't just a collection of separate benefits – it's how members get closer to the things they care about. The entertainment sparks a feeling; the delivery makes it tangible. That's the interconnected experience we wanted people to see and feel.”

The Boys

The new work launched around major cultural moments including the World Cup, the final season of ‘The Boys’, and the return of ‘Reacher’. This timing was very deliberate and “built into the strategy from the start” to embed the brand idea into border entertainment conversations. “We wanted to show up when people are already paying attention: the World Cup when everyone's watching, the final season of ‘The Boys’ when fans are emotionally invested, and the return of ‘Reacher’ when anticipation is high.”

Running ads in parallel to these events wasn’t enough, however, so the team “built the idea into these worlds, so the campaign feels like part of the same conversation,” says Jo. “And by pairing that entertainment with delivery, we're showing what the membership actually does in the moments people care about most.”

Exclusive: Behind the scenes of the shoot

Comedy plays a significant role in the creative, particularly through the contrast between ordinary delivery drivers and extraordinary fictional worlds. “The drivers needed to feel authentic. They're polite, professional, just trying to do their job despite the chaos around them. That's where the humour comes from – the contrast. And they're delivering things these characters actually need, so it doesn't feel forced,” she says.

The team tapped Brandt Lewis to direct, a former creative, because “he knows how to balance humour with a positive portrayal of the brand – which in this case, actually work hand in hand,” and he was instrumental in delivering restrained, authentic performances from the delivery drivers.

From a craft perspective, recreating the visual language of two hugely successful series is no small task. Jo notes that “fans of these shows know every detail, the characters, the physicality, the tone, so if the world we recreated felt even slightly off, the whole thing falls apart. Our bar was ‘indistinguishable from the show itself’.” The challenge was to infuse the delivery service and the drivers amid the action, “which is inherently funny, but that humour only works if the world around them feels completely, unmistakably real. Getting that balance right was the hardest creative problem to solve, and the most rewarding.”

Increasingly, brands are looking to become participants in culture rather than simply advertisers around it. Jo sees how there’s a “real shift happening from advertising around culture to actually being part of it – making something people experience the same way they experience the entertainment they love.” It’s a signal as to where the future of entertainment marketing is heading and that the brands creating experiences which audiences genuinely enjoy (rather than simply tolerate) are the ones that will succeed.