Amazon Live taps into the power of influencers, ecommerce and live video to deliver personalized and engaging livestream shopping experiences for the masses.

Marketers from Amazon Live, 23andMe and influencer Nicole Mejia sat down with Adweek’s director of audience engagement Jess Zafarris during our Elevate: Future of Shopping event to dive into what live shopping means for the retail landscape and how this new way of buying not only entertains but educates and engages consumers of all ages.

Creating connections through video

Sitting at the intersection of content, commerce and community, Zach Johnson, director of monetization at Amazon Live Shoppable Videos, explained how interactive live video leads directly into the Amazon experience.

“We’re able to connect customers with brands and creators to educate, entertain and promote the discovery of new products,” he said. “We have a variety of capabilities, whether it’s Amazon-produced content with celebrities and creators or brand-produced content.

“Overall, Amazon Live sits at this point-of-sale where it’s an avenue of storytelling, awareness-building, and we’re trying to find that line of how we bring the most relevant video—whether live or on-demand—to the consumer journey.”

Reaching more consumers

Mejia has been working with Amazon Live for over a year. She said she was instantly impressed with the freedom given to creators on the platform, something she said makes Amazon Live unique.

“That’s one of the main things I love about it. Coming from a platform like Instagram, where brand deals are, ‘This is the product, this is the content,’ there’s a lot more freedom because you can feature a number of different brands and products in the same context piece, which makes it accessible and relevant to a lot more consumers,” she explained.

Mejia also appreciates the creative freedom given to Amazon Live creators.

“I can show up where I want. I’ve been on vacation and gone live a few times from my computer,” she said. “You get to play around with the type of content you’re offering, from a workout to a ‘get ready with me,’ to unboxing, and working with amazing brands like 23andMe.”

For Amazon Prime Day this year, 23andMe promoted its deals through Amazon Live and in partnership with Mejia.

“Our campaign objective was to highlight our brand and showcase the health aspects of 23andMe to motivate customers to check out our products,” said CJ Swenson, director of international marketing and Amazon for 23andMe.

“We wanted to make use of the different live formats, including branded content integration and sponsorships, and we also wanted to try something new and test the waters with an influencer-produced livestream.”

The power of relevance

The panelists agreed that live video is a highly engaging tool that allows brands to reach new audiences, but its true power lies in relevance.

“It’s our role at Amazon to make sure that video is relevant,” Johnson said. “We have teams supporting Nicole and the creator community, teams supporting the brand community to make Amazon Live and Amazon shoppable videos more prevalent as a part of their overall Amazon marketing strategy. It’s really tailoring and making that connection to where consumers are, and we believe video is a really powerful tool to do that.”