Claudine Cheever
VP Global Brand and Marketing, Amazon

As the world leader of global e-commerce, Amazon is in constant movement. From relentless innovation to a hard-earned mission-driven culture, it revolutionized the online shopping experience. This combination of culture and innovative excellence has propelled Amazon toward the top of Interbrand’s Best Global Brands ranking, one of few brands that has held the title of Best Global Brand for over 20 years.

“Our mission-driven culture is one of the strongest things about Amazon,” Claudine Cheever, Vice President Global Brand and Marketing atAmazon said. “Being Earth’s most customer-centric company is well-known, but how we articulate that is around making customer’s lives easier and better, and inventing relentlessly in order to do so.” 

This commitment to customer service is realized through 16 core leadership principles, with Cheever highlighting four: bias for action emphasizes quick decision-making and calculated risk-taking; learn and be curious promotes an open mindset; think big focuses on creating bold initiatives that connect emotionally with customers; dive deep ensures a meaningful impact on customers while driving business. These principles create a powerful force that continues to propel Amazon’s sustained success, constantly reinventing to deliver increasingly creative and strategically-driven experiences. 

“My team’s vision is to be the most creatively breakthrough and measurably effective marketing organization in the world,” Cheever said. 

Amazon’s dedication to embracing risk and reinvention unfolds in Amazon’s latest holiday advertisement, “Joy is Shared.” Three older women see children sledding, and upon remembering the joy of their own experience, order cushions that will help them relive those moments while forging new memories together.

“We’ve learned that a range of emotions in ads is really good,” Cheever said. “Not just joy, but also a moment of sadness–that actually creates some psychological stickiness for the viewer.” 

Through its storytelling approach, Amazon emphasizes the idea that its convenience and offerings empower customers to make more stories of their own. Recent Prime ad “‘Tache”, directed by actress and director Olivia Wilde, features a young girl learning to celebrate her facial hair and celebrating her individuality by using Prime to purchase new decor for her room, play her favorite music and even buy a Freddy Mercury outfit–channeling one of her icons that also has a mustache.

Amazon additionally films its ads in a wide variety of locations globally, creating visuals and messages alike that truly resonate with different audiences around the world. 

“We’re always looking for different stories and different ways to connect with our customers,” Cheever said. “It’s a responsibility. It really is.” 

By ensuring a diverse talent set and shooting campaigns in global locations to build cultural empathy, Amazon ensures its marketing reflects the richness and diversity of its customer base. 

Amazon’s 25-year history of AI integration has ensured it stays at the forefront of technological innovation. Amazon’s latest integration of deep learning in marketing allows for dynamic content optimization, segmentation and nuanced context for ads, working with the empathetic, human side of marketing to create massively effective messages. 

“AI becomes really powerful in terms of rapidly selecting and optimizing the right creative and really getting that nuanced context for the right place, right time, right message,” Cheever said. 

As its volume of personalized content increases, Amazon emphasizes the importance of maintaining the brand’s voice, creating a consistent experience in certain aspects across all of Amazon’s sub-brands, while still allowing a certain amount of space for the sub-brand to stand independently 

“We think of ourselves as both a house of brands and a branded house,” Cheever said. “Everything speaks with the same voice.” 

Amazon places significant importance on its brand, valuing it through a three-pronged measurement approach; short-term return, incremental actions taken by customers post-marketing exposure, and the enduring strength of the brand. This trifecta ensures a comprehensive assessment, with likability, watchability and brand linkage listed as critical metrics driving positive outcomes. 

As Amazon continues to pioneer the future of e-commerce, it also recognizes the importance of creating better experiences for everyone, today. 

“Brand is really important to Amazon,” Cheever said. “We humbly appreciate when we show up in the top three of Interbrand’s Best Global Brands.”