Amazon Prime

All You Can Eat Shipping

When Amazon described Prime to the folks here at FLY, we were skeptical. And when Jeff Bezos told us that this was the most important launch in Amazon’s history, we were still skeptical. But we learned early on not to question the business acumen of Mr. Bezos. The launch itself was hardly a typical brand effort. The marketing department at Amazon felt more comfortable with a Direct Response campaign. Since DR was one of our core competencies, we gave Amazon a campaign that honored the brand but sold the one price shipping concept with clarity. Our approach for Prime combined a favorite consumer feature and the notion of unlimited shipping with the tagline:  “All you can eat shipping.”

We wanted to make the idea of unlimited shipping for one price (unheard of at the time) simple to understand. As with many DR efforts, we relied on consumer testimonials. We figured if the average Amazon customer could explain Prime then everyone else would get it.

At first, the press wasn’t so kind to this new offering. But then, the press doesn’t always get things right. But the market does what the market does. Today, Amazon Prime is the largest subscription business on the planet. It’s estimated that worldwide Prime membership now tops 220 million. Our instincts about the business were off. But our creative approach explained the proposition well. And once the word got out, well, the rest is history.