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Should Amazon Make Their Boxes Available To Advertisers?

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Revlon recently branded 10 million of Amazon.com’s shipping boxes as part of a campaign dubbed “the Love Project,” becoming the first-ever beauty company to do an Amazon “shipping-box takeover.”

Along with the Revlon name, an image of a heart and the slogan, #LoveIn3Words, appeared on small boxes during February and March. The company used an accompanying social activation campaign to encourage consumers to join the Love Project movement by visiting theloveproject2017.com and creating their custom #Lovein3Words post for their social channels.

The Love Project, designed to reach socially-active Millennials, is an extension of Revlon’s “Love is On” campaign, which was launched in 2014 around the brand’s “belief in the power of love and the diversity of beauty.” The social activation campaign was supported by a television commercial that ran during the Academy Awards and a thirty-second video that ran on Lady Gaga’s social network. Revlon committed $1 million in charitable contributions as part of the effort.

Fabian Garcia, president and CEO, said about the Amazon collaboration, “If you think about these programs, there are several objects: obviously to enhance the brand equity, to learn a lot [about] how to partner with the best retailers online and, number three, to monetize the effort. So, we expect results, positive results, on the three fronts.”

Revlon’s partnership appears to be only the second time Amazon has allowed a third party to completely brand its delivery boxes. In 2015, in conjunction with the release of the Minions movie, Amazon shipped items in yellow boxes designed with images of characters from the film.

In an online discussion last week, the RetailWire BrainTrust considered the value of Amazon boxes doubling as ad space.

“How long does it take to open a box?” said Joel Rubinson, president of Rubinson Partners. “A lot longer than people view digital display ads on average. Yes, this could be big.”

“Brilliant idea on Amazon’s part,” said Charles Dimov, director of marketing at OrderDynamics. “The boxes are plain and screaming for ad attention.”

But some saw danger in overdoing it with the on-box advertising.

“The space and the impressions by themselves are not valuable without a solid strategy and plan to use them in a way that creates value,” said Susan O’Neal, CEO of Adjoy. “I think Revlon did a great job with their campaign. Increasing the frequency will increase the noise which will decrease any value the real estate could contribute to a well-orchestrated campaign.”

“If Amazon keeps these deals rare, then they can keep a freshness and still be worth it,” said Doug Garnett, founder and CEO of Atomic Direct. “But if Amazon does this regularly we will ignore the Amazon boxes as easily as we ignore the other advertising wallpaper in our lives.”