How “Customer-Obsession” Helped Amazon Deliver one of Last Year’s Most Effective Ads In-House

There are some stories we all recognise. When ‘Joy Ride’, Amazon’s 2023 holiday ad, was released last year for example, millions of us instantly recognised the human story it told. It was about nostalgia, but also the joys of getting old and surrounding yourself with friends during the festive season. Perhaps all of that is why the ad was named by System1 as the most effective of 2023’s entire holiday period. 

But for such a beguilingly simple story, there’s a lot going on underneath Joy Ride’s hood. For starters, there’s the fact that the ad emerged from Amazon’s own in-house creative team, led by the duo of group creative directors Josh Cassidy and Vicente Feliciano who have been working together now across both agency and brand-side for almost a decade and a half. The ad makes good on the brand’s belief in the power of storytelling - and that’s fitting, given that Amazon is home to one of the world’s most-watched entertainment platforms in the form of its Prime on-demand video service. And, on top of all that, Joy Ride is scored by a cover of The Beatles’ ‘In My Life’, a song so iconic and evocative that it could hardly fail to connect with audiences. 

To learn more about the process behind the ad - and what it tells us about Amazon’s creative team and processes more broadly - LBB’s Adam Bennett caught up with Josh and Vicente… 

LBB> Josh and Vicente, what was the initial germ of an idea for this ad? Was there a particular insight you built it around?

J&V> We were ideating for our annual global holiday brand film, and we knew we wanted to tell a story about how Amazon enables customers to share joy.

Oftentimes we’ll challenge ourselves to come in from an unexpected angle to unlock an interesting story. In this instance, we asked ourselves, what if the product that enabled the joy was something completely out of left field… like a butt cushion? Could we spin a thoughtful story out of that? 

We also get a lot of inspiration from listening to music. Certain songs put certain images in your head. Josh was driving in his car and randomly Forever Young by Alphaville came on… and the visual of sledding senior citizens popped into his head. Which is completely dangerous, and at the very least painful. But we thought it would be less painful if you used butt cushions, and that’s where we started. 

LBB> And to what extent did the finished spot align with your vision at the outset?

J&V> The finished spot was pretty close to our original vision, but the story had become much more grounded. Our original version had more physical humour, stunts, and bigger gags. The more we developed the story, “Old people” acting recklessly young felt kind of expected and ad-y. There was actually something more emotionally resonant about people in their twilight years longing for the days of their youth that we found more interesting and impactful. We also realised we had an opportunity to show senior citizens in a different light that wasn’t the conventional advertising trope of portraying them as frail, or a punchline.

LBB> According to System1, this was one of the most effective ads of the last holiday season (and one of the most effective the company has ever tested)! Can you explain why that might have been? What do you think made the ad strike a chord for people?

J&V> A couple of things come to mind. First, the women we casted delivered incredible performances. We also learned in the casting process how grossly underrepresented women over 65 are in global ads. It’s like, only 4% or something. The other thing is that the underlying emotions of the story and characters were relatable. Everyone has favourite holiday memories. Everyone longs for the days when things were simpler as kids. Everyone has relationships that stand the test of time. And everyone gets old. But we wanted to refute this idea that at a certain age we’re supposed to accept that our best days are behind us and that we’re no longer capable of certain things. We think this spot reminds people that fun doesn’t have an age limit, and it’s never too late to make new memories.

Also, having your spot directed by Wayne McClammy at Hungryman and scored with a Beatles song never hurts.

LBB> And what made it work particularly well as a holiday ad? Do you think the theme of nostalgia would have worked quite so well at other times of the year, for example? 

J&V> The nostalgia definitely helped. The holidays are filled with emotion, and they’re responsible for many of the lasting memories we share. The holiday season naturally punctuated the emotion in our story. If this was three older ladies surfing in the summer, we can’t say it would hit the same. 

LBB> What was the biggest challenge you encountered whilst making the ad, and how did you overcome it?

J&V> There were a few, haha. The first was the fact that this was a global ad playing across North America and Europe with varying degrees of familiarity with our brand. And we needed the story to equally resonate in all of them, so we made the intentional choice to tell the story without dialogue.

The second was the logistics of faithfully pulling off this sledding concept in the month of August, and without killing our elderly cast in the process. At the time, there were only a few places in the world with snow. Weirdly enough, one of those places was at the top of Mammoth Mountain in California so that’s where we went, and ploughed tons of snow down the mountain to create our sledding run. Then we encountered the physical challenge of actually getting our senior women up the icy mountain, and then to have them sled down it without injury. They were secured in a rig, but given their age, we couldn’t risk their safety. We only had one or two takes down the hill with each lady, so the stakes were high. Oh, and we also encountered multiple lightning and rain storms during filming right before California was hit with a hurricane.

The last big challenge was the music. Our plan was to create an orchestral version of “In My Life” by The Beatles. Not only did we need to get permission from a Beatles board, we also needed permission from Sir Paul McCartney. Luckily, we sent him a rough cut and he loved it. After we got his blessing, we had a few weeks left to create our original arrangement with our music partner, DLMDD. Our rendition used a combination of an upright piano recorded in a dusty London apartment, and an orchestra recorded in Prague. If you get a chance to recreate a Beatle’s song, you don’t want to fuck it up. We’re really happy with how it turned out.

LBB> Did you look to any classic movies or TV shows for inspiration when it came to the tone of this ad? If so, which?

J&V> We didn’t look to any TV shows, actually. Instead, we listened to a lot of music. Hours and hours of music. We knew the right song could really elevate the emotional arc of the film. Our director even had music playing on set to get ladies into the right headspace. Then, in the edit, it felt like we tried everything to make sure we had the best song, and we really lucked out when we got approval to reimagine In My Life.

LBB> How does the ad fit into Amazon’s broader comms strategy - what aspects of the broader brand experience were you communicating in this spot, for example?

J&V> Amazon is customer-obsessed, and enabling customers to share joy was our broader holiday strategy. Since this global brand film would be airing in markets who aren’t as familiar with our brand, the story needed to both communicate who we are, as well as what we do. So, we didn’t want to overstate the role we play in customers' lives. We made the choice to tell a story that prioritised the thoughtfulness of our customers over the literal things they buy from Amazon.  

LBB> We'd love to ask about working brand-side as opposed to the traditional agency model. Has there been anything which has surprised you about the process for campaigns like this since you made the switch? 

J&V> We’re really close to the business now, and it’s honestly allowed us to sell and make some of our favourite work because we’re much more tuned-in to our business goals and insights. It’s also opened up our world to the global challenges that a “brand film” needs to navigate so that there’s equal impact across very different markets and cultures. It’s easy for global work to get watered down to the lowest common-denominator, but we’re fortunate to work for a team of leaders with very high creative standards.

LBB> And what made you want to take the leap brand-side with Amazon more broadly? 

J&V> We knew Amazon had creatively ambitious leaders that were here to make the best work of their careers, and we loved the idea of not having as many layers between us and the decision-makers greenlighting the work. The creative education and mental stamina that our agency experience gave us is invaluable, but we don’t miss having several rounds of internal approval before ever getting to the first junior-client meeting, and then repeating the process several times thereafter. We were also excited to help build a creative team with the opportunity to make work for one of the most visible brands in the world.

LBB> Finally, would you do anything differently if you had your time again? 

J&V> We’re really happy with the spot we made, but if we had the time again, we probably should have gone sledding down the mountain ourselves. If nothing else, it was a completely wasted sledding opportunity in the month of August.