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Amazon’s Ukonwa Ojo Talks Entertainment Marketing Amid the Pandemic

Ethan Shanfeld
·2 min read

“People just wanted an escape from all the traumatic issues that were happening in the world,” said Ukonwa Ojo, chief marketing officer at Amazon Studios and Prime Video. “I found it a privilege to be that escape.”

At the Variety Entertainment Marketing Summit, presented by Deloitte, editor-in-chief Claudia Eller sat down virtually with Ojo to discuss her pivot from consumer marketing to entertainment and what the entertainment industry will look like post-pandemic.

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Ojo, who previously worked at MAC Cosmetics, decided to make the shift to entertainment because she viewed Amazon as a huge company that still had a lot of momentum.

“I love a lot of the parallels between beauty and entertainment,” Ojo said. “There are a lot of transferrable skills from one industry to the next.”

Ojo said that Amazon allows her to work with rich stories that people want to engage with in their free time, which often differs from selling products.

“In entertainment, you get to tell people stories that make them dream, that make them laugh or cry, that make them angry or sad,” Ojo said. “And so that emotional connection is what is so uniquely powerful about marketing and entertainment.”

When asked how Amazon plans to continue reaching consumers after society fully reopens and families are no longer stuck at home, Ojo said that the tradition of staying home to watch a movie or TV show is here to stay.

“A lot of people have amazing TVs and sound systems that can mimic a lot of the experience in the theater,” Ojo said. “We don’t want to lose sight of the incredible value that we are providing to people’s lives and to their families.”

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