Mercedes-Benz USA is leaning into live sports as both a branding stage and a testing ground, teaming up with Amazon Ads on a series of custom creative spots that ran in January and February around Prime Video’s NBA broadcasts.
The automaker is serving as the presenting sponsor of the NBA on Prime Saturday games for the season, which began in October, and it was positioned as an early partner as Prime Video accelerated its move deeper into sports.
At the centre of the strategy is a clear read on where luxury is heading in the United States. Mercedes-Benz USA’s CMO described a market that has changed dramatically: audiences are diversifying at speed, luxury buyers are skewing younger, and the traditional spaces where consumers used to engage with luxury brands are shrinking.
In that context, Prime Video is framed not simply as another media channel, but as a viewing environment that aligns with Mercedes-Benz’s dual ambition – expanding advertising audiences while staying true to an iconic heritage.
Why Amazon’s NBA environment matters to marketers at the top of the funnel
For Amazon, the Mercedes-Benz work is also a proof point for how the company is evolving its advertising offering – particularly in live sports, where scale and attention can be unusually high.
The partnership underscores how live programming can deliver broad reach at the top of the funnel, while still leaving room for more advanced, down-funnel tactics across Amazon’s wider ecosystem.
Amazon Ads’ head of sports brand partnerships described the proposition as a blend of experimentation and ownership. Mercedes-Benz can “come in and experiment,” create branded content, and take a prominent “ownership position” within programming. Then, as audiences move down the funnel, Amazon can support next steps through its ad tech – such as remarketing and continuing conversations with viewers across other Amazon surfaces.
In other words, the pitch isn’t only about being seen during the game; it’s about linking that moment of attention to follow-on touchpoints in places where Amazon can measure and re-engage.
Creative that aims to entertain instead of interrupt
The campaign’s creative approach was designed to feel native to the moment rather than bolted on top of it.
The four vignettes revolve around a comedic mystery: chaos breaks out when “NBA on Prime Video” analyst Dirk Nowitzki is missing from the broadcast studio. Each spot then “finds” the basketball legend in the parking garage, where he’s absorbed in the experience of a Mercedes-Benz GLS – with the ads highlighting features including exterior styling, massage seating, sound system, and ambient lighting.
The underlying logic is as strategic as it is cinematic. Mercedes-Benz’s team emphasised that buying a luxury item – especially a vehicle – is fundamentally an emotional experience. With that in mind, the brand’s intent is to connect with viewers on an emotional level and evoke feelings like comfort and home.
For short-form storytelling, the team also stressed that the customer benefit has to be integrated into the narrative naturally, rather than feeling like a last-second product call-out.
The result is a style of ad that seeks to entertain while still doing the job of product communication – highlighting the GLS experience without disrupting the broadcast in a way that feels jarring.
Mercedes-Benz also pointed to the value of reaching passionate audiences during moments of high attention, arguing that contextually relevant creative is essential when consumers are inundated with advertising.
The agency and media architecture behind the campaign
Mercedes-Benz and Amazon brought in specialist partners to shape both message and placement. Merkley+Partners was enlisted for strategy, while PHD handled media investment.
That division of labour reflects a broader reality of modern sports media: the creative idea is only one part of the equation, and the media mechanics – how often, where, and in what format audiences encounter the brand – carry equal weight in determining whether a sponsorship becomes memorable or merely visible.
Amazon’s sports advertising momentum, from NFL to NBA and beyond
Amazon’s NBA push is being positioned as a continuation of lessons learned from its NFL success.
Prime Video began broadcasting “Thursday Night Football” exclusively starting with the 2022 season, and Amazon has used that property as a flagship example of what sports-driven brand integrations can deliver.
Amazon shared data from Latitude Research indicating that in the 2024–25 season, brands with “Thursday Night Football” sponsorships and integrations on Prime Video saw measurable brand-lift indicators: 80% of viewers said they had a more favourable opinion of a brand because of such integrations, and those integrations were described as twice as effective at improving brand consideration compared with linear NFL sponsorships.
Amazon also noted that spots featuring on-screen talent – content the company produces on behalf of brands – have been resonating as “most preferred” and “most attention grabbing,” and as strong fits within the programming.
That performance feedback is informing Amazon’s recommendations to partners like Mercedes-Benz: leveraging talent already embedded in the broadcast can help deliver brand messages in a way that feels coherent with the viewing experience.
Extending the activation beyond the ads: film amplification and a March studio takeover
The Mercedes-Benz collaboration isn’t limited to the Nowitzki vignettes. Amazon also supported the automaker’s integration in the Sony Pictures film “GOAT” by amplifying messaging on digital screens inside its Culver City, California studio during “NBA on Prime Video” broadcasts.
That move signals a broader ambition: connect the dots between entertainment, live sport, and brand presence across multiple formats – without relying solely on standard commercial breaks.
Looking ahead, Amazon and Mercedes-Benz are also working on a studio takeover scheduled to air later in March, which will spotlight an additional video. It’s another indication that the partnership is being treated as an evolving platform rather than a one-and-done sponsorship package.
A live-sports playbook that now includes the WNBA
Amazon’s approach to sports is expanding beyond the NFL and NBA, with the company also pointing to the WNBA as part of its growing live sports strategy.
Amazon framed its model as inherently additive: when a brand joins a larger-scale initiative, the company looks for ways to “do a little bit more” and help partners drill down into incremental objectives beyond the initial broadcast moment.
Amazon also described this phase as the first time it is bringing its own distinct Prime Video sports perspective to the WNBA. With its full global NBA partnership underway, the company said it will have shoulder programming tied to the WNBA as well, and indicated more details would be revealed soon – positioning women’s basketball not as an afterthought, but as an extension of a broader sports-content ecosystem.
Conclusion: Luxury storytelling meets live-sports scale
Taken together, the Mercedes-Benz USA and Amazon Ads partnership reads like a modern blueprint for premium marketing in a fragmented media era.
Mercedes-Benz is responding to a luxury market that is younger and more diverse, using Prime Video’s NBA environment to reach high-attention audiences with creative content that aims to entertain rather than interrupt – anchored by Dirk Nowitzki and the everyday indulgences of the GLS experience.
For Amazon, the work reinforces a larger ambition: make live sports not only a reach engine, but a platform where brands can secure meaningful ownership, then build continuity through ad tech and follow-on engagement across Amazon’s ecosystem.
With additional activations tied to film, a March studio takeover, and a widening sports footprint that now extends towards the WNBA, the collaboration suggests that the future of premium advertising may belong to brands that can combine cultural relevance, contextual creative, and measurable pathways from first impression to lasting consideration.
