Why Alan Moss Wants Amazon To Be A Crystal Box
In my interview with Alan Moss, VP Global Advertising Sales at Amazon, we explored how the company is scaling its DSP to attract and onboard premium broadcasters globally. And frankly, they’ve built a solid narrative for the buy side to support that growth.
Using Guideline data, that sell seems to be working: Amazon DSP has grown by 27.4% over the past year in agency spend alone — and that’s not even counting search. Prime Video is clearly a huge factor in that growth.
Amazon wants to offer clients a one-stop shop for buying premium, authenticated (i.e., logged-in), transparent, and measurable media. With Disney on board and a new deal with Roku, they now have the scale. According to Moss, Amazon has the largest addressable, logged-in CTV footprint in the U.S. — a critical factor for transparency, measurement, and managing frequency. (Personally, I’d only buy CTV inventory that’s logged in or authenticated — otherwise it’s the wild west.)
Greater Transparency
I asked Moss how Amazon matches the level of transparency in the U.S. that buyers often expect in other regions. He explained they typically work with whichever third-party measurement company the brand or agency prefers. As he puts it: “We want to be seen as a crystal box, not a black box.”
Across 80% of streaming platforms, Moss says Amazon can identify who’s watching what, plan media buys more effectively, apply frequency caps across multiple inventory sources, and measure incremental reach — and he shared examples of each.
So what’s the pitch? Simplification. “When we talk to CMOs, they want simplicity and proof that their marketing investment is paying off,” says Moss.
What stood out in this conversation is how Amazon blends demand generation with lower-funnel activation. I believe they’re well positioned to provide the kind of feedback and data marketing teams need to satisfy CEOs and CFOs who are increasingly hungry for clear ROI.
(As a side note: I still agree with Les Binet — we should work in probabilities, not absolutes. But the reality is that CFOs want guarantees, and Amazon may be able to offer the kind of data they like.)
There’s more in the full interview — including Moss’s take on overall media spend and the broader CTV market. He’s keen for us to stop saying “CTV” and just call it TV. I would too — once CTV cleans up its act and starts looking more like TV.