Mark Shopiro, head of Prime Video Canada, speaks during Amazon’s inaugural Upfront on Thursday. Photo credit: George Pimentel

Amazon Ads unveiled a suite of new ad formats on Thursday that leverage digital interactivity to help brands build full-funnel campaigns.

The announcement came during Amazon’s inaugural Canadian Upfront at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works, where senior executives from Amazon Ads and Prime Video took the stage alongside celebrities like Colby Minifie and Nathan Mitchell from the Prime Video series The Boys and athletes like RJ Barrett from the Toronto Raptors.

During the presentation, Amazon Canada announced the release of interactive video ads that allow viewers to engage with brands by adding the advertised item directly to their Amazon cart. Another key feature in Amazon’s new suite includes interactive pause ads, which allow viewers to engage with brands when they pause their show or movie.

The release of the interactive ad formats was based on research conducted by Amazon in the U.S. According to the research, advertisers running both interactive and non-interactive video ads for their Amazon product listings found interactive ads to be more effective in boosting engagement rates across the customer shopping journey. Interactive ads drove 10x more product page views and conversions than non-interactive ad formats, according to Amazon.

“These formats are designed to connect premium content with key shopping moments, enhancing the streaming experience while helping brands build more effective full-funnel campaigns,” Tamir Bar-Haim, VP of Amazon Ads, tells MiC.

On Thursday, leaders from Prime Video also unveiled a lineup of upcoming TV series and films, as well as a new NBA partnership, expanded NHL coverage and as the exclusive home for tier-one sports including the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).

From October through June, Thursday nights on Prime Video will showcase premium live sports – Prime Monday Night Hockey and NHL Coast to Coast during hockey season, transitioning to NBA action, starting in the 2026/27 season.

Bar-Haim says through partnerships with the PWHL and the WNBA – which is welcoming the Toronto Tempo to the league next season – Amazon is showcasing elite women’s athletics and responding to growing audience demand for diverse sports content.

“This expansive portfolio of new shows, movies and live sports are not just entertainment options, they represent solutions for brands in Canada to connect with viewers during their most engaged moments,” Bar-Haim says. “Amazon Ads enables advertisers to engage with the audience in new ways, through multi-sponsorships and adtech solutions. We work to ensure brands can easily access and activate all Amazon Ads offerings.”

Brent Hayes, head of originals in Canada for Amazon MGM Studios, provided a first look at the slate of new programming coming to Prime Video, while Shaun Alperin, Prime Video’s head of content strategy for Canada, showcased the global titles, including the upcoming John Candy documentary from Ryan Reynolds and Colin Hanks.

Alperin also highlighted that 72% of people watching Prime Video with ads in Canada watch Amazon Originals content each month.

Prime Video’s lineup includes hockey stars, dating scammers, punk rockers and beer-drinking RV salvagers. Among the seven new Amazon Originals are Simple Plan: Kids in the Crowd, a docuseries which follows the Montreal punk band from its inception to global stardom, and Faceoff: Inside the NHL Season 2, a docuseries that chronicles the on-ice and off-ice lives of NHL superstars like Sidney Crosby and Marc-André Fleury.

Amazon Ads also discussed new ways for advertisers to engage with audiences across premium entertainment. With multi-sponsorships, brands can reach audiences across collections of content grouped by genre or key calendar moments, Amazon says.

Prime Video sponsorships are delivering powerful results for brands. For instance, Cuisinart’s recent sponsorship of Red One algined with Prime Video’s most successful Amazon MGM Studio movie premiere, reaching more than 50 million viewers globally in just four days. It also saw a 22% lift in awareness and a 70% higher purchase rate when combining Prime Video sponsorship with their other Amazon Ads campaigns.

“Advertisers can easily get involved with ads, sponsorships and content through direct integrations with premium publishers, an expanded suite of programmatic capabilities and the ability to seamlessly deliver their stories, measure outcomes and engage with viewers,” Bar-Haim says.

Looking ahead to the future of streaming TV advertising, Amazon Ads says it’s addressing industry challenges like fragmentation, evolving ad identifiers and the need for measurable outcomes. To help solve for these customer needs, the streamer has revealed a new Amazon DSP experience that brings together exclusive supply, premium publisher integrations and advanced signals to drive performance across the entire funnel.