In 2022, Amazon signed a 10-year-deal with the NFL, granting Prime Video the right to stream Thursday Night Football exclusively on their platform. Prime Video, one of the latest entertainment streaming platforms to join the streaming wars, suddenly joined the world of sports. And although Amazon is one of the largest companies on the planet, it became a challenger brand in the segment, competing with brands such as Fox Sports, ESPN, and other football broadcasters.

To create more awareness that Thursday Night Football had a new home, we not only launched a campaign but a whole new football.

Amazon Prime Video, an entertainment entity, signed a streaming deal with the NFL to get exclusive rights to stream Thursday Night Football on their platform.

After the deal between Amazon and the NFL was signed, Amazon made a plan for the first year of the partnership. The brand had two main objectives before the first season started:

1 - Create more awareness that Thursday Night Football has a new home.

2 - Engage and create a meaningful relationship with an audience they never had before: football fans.

But it wasn’t going to be that easy. Football fans had, for many years, watched football the same way, on open TV. Having to switch to a streaming platform was an easy move for some but a challenging one for others.

And they were not quiet about that frustration on social media.

In the months leading up to the launch of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, Amazon collected data from its new football audience. On one side of the audience spectrum, the “Digital Natives” fans were excited and looking forward to what the new streaming platform could offer to the broadcast. On the other hand, the most conservative “Football Fanatics” were reluctant about the change. Amazon needed to start developing a relationship with both sides, proving that it was not here to change anything in the game but to bring more entertainment.

Many negative comments were happening online, so the brand needed to build a relationship with its new audience there first.

Instead of moving away from the problem, or trying to make it smaller, Amazon Prime Video, decided to bring some fun to it. So we made the problem bigger. Way bigger.

For a few days, we purposefully turned football fans’ worst nightmare into reality: we changed the game’s most sacred icon – the football itself. To make the change even scarier, the Amazon “smile” logo was what inspired the new ball design. After a few days of madness online, Amazon revealed that Prime Video wasn’t changing anything on the game. Just where people watch it. The reveal increased positive sentiment, turning haters into fans and showing that Amazon was willing to bring more entertainment to their broadcast.

Before creating the campaign, we created a new product. In partnership with Wilson, Amazon Prime Video developed a new football ball. We needed a ball inspired by the shape of the Amazon logo, but it still needed to be a working ball for the quarterbacks. The aerodynamics, the size, and the weight were all elements that had to be considered.

As part of our social campaign launch, the ball was given to the most famous quarterbacks of the NFL (Russel Wilson, Mathew Staford and Justin Herbert). They tried the ball on their training sessions, we filmed them - made the videos even more absurd - and then used them as part of the campaign’s amplification.

The Prime Ball was the hottest topic on the American football scene for almost an entire week. The reveal increased positive sentiment, turning haters into fans and showing that Amazon would bring more entertainment to their broadcast.

Over 100 media outlets picked up the story, and it all started with one social media post on Prime Video’s account. The social video announcing the new ball broke the record as the most viewed and commented video on Prime Video’s social history by 3X.

The same post was responsible for ⅔ of all Prime Video’s TikTok engagements.

On Twitter, it was the most engaging tweet for Prime Video in 2022. The campaign's engagement rate broke the brand’s record at 6,3%. Those posts were shared by creators, influencers, and celebrities such as Richard Sherman, Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, Dude Perfect, Lacey Taylor Rooks, Andrew Whitworth, Russel Wilson, and others.

When the NFL announced the exclusive rights for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video, hardcore football fans turned furious. They didn't trust the corporation and feared that Amazon could make unwelcoming changes to their loved game.

They took on social media to express their frustration, making it very challenging for Amazon to connect with its brand-new audience.

But instead of moving away from the problem, Amazon embraced it. And made a whole campaign to make football fans change their minds about the brand.