The world of digital entertainment is a dynamic beast, constantly evolving to capture our fleeting attention. From the personalized feeds of short-form content to the immersive narratives of long-form series, platforms are locked in a fierce battle for eyeballs in a truly global arena. In a market as vast and diverse as India, where value for money and mobile-first consumption reign supreme, understanding the pulse of the audience isn’t just an advantage—it’s the only way to survive and thrive. 

Against this backdrop, Adgully spoke to Karan Bedi, Director & Head at Amazon MX Player, and Girish Prabhu, Head of Amazon Ads India. In this exclusive interview, they pull back the curtain on how MX Player’s integration into the Amazon ecosystem is not just a business acquisition, but a synergistic leap forward in technology, data, and content distribution. They share compelling insights into their accelerated innovation roadmap, revealing how they’re navigating the complexities of brand safety, pioneering “micro-genres”, and reimagining advertising to create seamless, shoppable entertainment experiences for millions. 

With MX Player now under the Amazon umbrella, what synergies have been most useful in terms of technology, data, and content distribution? How will this partnership accelerate your future innovation roadmap? 

Karan Bedi: It’s been about seven months since the transaction happened. The speed of integration has been phenomenal. Typically, M&A transactions take years to settle, but the team has done an amazing job. It’s now one fully integrated team, including technical integration with Amazon’s backend systems. 

In terms of synergy, there are many benefits. A good example is the monetization stack. Amazon is a global leader in ad technology. Tapping into those monetization capabilities has been crucial. We can now offer advertisers unique solutions and innovations. For instance, our “Personas” allow advertisers to target consumers based on shopping signals. Instead of demographic targeting like “females, 25-35, for soap”, you can directly target “people who buy soap”. Amazon’s vast data stack provides relevant reach. 

On the distribution side, we are now available on the Amazon Shopping app, Prime Video, Fire TV, and other fast-growing Amazon services. MX Player has transitioned from a purely mobile-first destination to being available across mobile and a wide range of devices. 

How do you ensure a brand-safe environment for content? 

Karan Bedi: Amazon has always prioritized trust and safety across its marketplace, ads business, and AWS. This ethos extends to MX Player. The platform is completely under the Amazon umbrella, ensuring safety.

Additionally, our content has become more diverse. We’re producing many reality shows, biographical dramas, and other advertiser-friendly content. We also continue to produce dramas, recognizing that a drama set in an office is still a drama, just as one set in the fields of Bihar. 

Could you tell us about the “micro genres” and where that exercise came from? 

Karan Bedi: We have a product called MX Fatafat, which will be launched soon. It features micro-dramas: one to two-minute episodes, with 70 to 80 episodes per season, in a vertical format. These are serialized, meaning each episode is linked and tells a continuous story. It’s not short-form video or reels. Each season has 50 to 70 complete, sequential episodes. 

The idea behind one to two-minute episodes, instead of 20-minute ones, is to cater to consumer needs. Sometimes you have an hour, sometimes 10 minutes, and you might want to watch two or three episodes. 

How does Amazon MX Player envision its role in shaping the future of digital entertainment in a price-conscious market like India, especially with the rise of short-form content and mobile-first consumption? 

Karan Bedi: When advertisers come to a platform, they want to discuss their products with consumers. The more immersed a user is in the content, the greater the impact of advertising. We offer various solutions for this. For complex product features, integration within a show, where a character uses and discusses the product, is ideal. For new discounts, an impact buy on media is better. When a customer is immersed in a 20-25 minute episode, their mind space is more receptive to ads. 

Multiple studies support this. We offer high-quality, premium, free entertainment accessible to everyone. 

How do you ensure your content resonates with an audience exposed to content across various platforms? How is MX Player curating its content slate to balance mass appeal with regional depth and storytelling diversity? 

Karan Bedi: We actively listen to our customers through viewing pattern analysis, a strong analytics practice (both at MX and Amazon), social media, customer support, and focus groups. We understand their preferences and constantly innovate. 

For example, we are the only platform doing digital-only reality shows that are not extensions of TV properties. We also innovated with long-format series, like Rihaniyat, which had 30-50 episodes. Our goal is clear: listen to customers and innovate to provide content they’ll enjoy. 

What role does regional content play in MX Player’s strategy, and how are you leveraging vernacular storytelling to deepen engagement across Bharat’s digital-first audience? 

Karan Bedi: While Hindi content forms the bulk, we dub all our content into multiple regional languages. In the past, we’ve produced content in Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu, and we will continue to do so as we expand our user base. We are committed to creating content in various regional languages and dubbing existing content. 

Could you share some examples of innovative advertising solutions or formats MX Player has introduced recently to help brands meaningfully engage with viewers, especially in the CTV and programmatic space? 

Girish Prabhu: We offer diverse opportunities based on desired brand outcomes. Our focus is less on advertising and more on bringing brands into the consumer’s mind space. This ranges from deep integrations within the story to action-oriented formats. For example, for a personal care brand, we have interactive formats where the product’s detail page appears right below the video ad, allowing instant purchase or adding to a wishlist. Since a significant portion of viewership is on mobile, this creates a direct engagement path for brands, streamlining the conversion process. 

As CTV adoption grows in India, how has MX Player integrated connected TV into its monetization and content strategies to capitalize on the shift towards larger screens and premium experiences? 

Karan Bedi: We are available across all major CTV platforms like Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, etc. We are also accessible through Prime Video, and a large portion of that is on Living Room Devices (LRDs). Fire TV, where Amazon is a leader, is another major pillar. There’s a concerted effort to ensure our presence everywhere. The idea is that users can access our content whenever and wherever they want – on mobile, web, and living room devices. We’re seeing significant growth in LRD adoption, as every new TV in India is a smart TV. Since we offer high-quality, free premium entertainment, users can simply download the app and play. 

How are you enabling brands to go beyond impressions towards storytelling and shoppable entertainment, especially with formats that blend content and commerce? 

Girish Prabhu: Deeper integration, where brands are part of the story, is preferred. Our content creation cycles are much faster; we produce premium content in half the time. This allows us to offer great selection with higher frequency and unique integration levels. You can see major brands integrated into our shows. 

Another aspect is precise messaging. The value of shopping signals and understanding household behavior is crucial for showing the right ad to the right customer at the right time. This applies when they are on Amazon properties (shopping app, Prime Video, MX Player, Alexa, Fire TV) and even when they are not, as we work with publishers across OTT and news. Our ability to provide wide, relevant reach to drive specific outcomes is differentiated. The objective is not just impressions, but driving the right outcome, like brand growth, increased sales, and acquiring new customers. We don’t focus on impression counts but on actual results. 

What are the trends that you have witnessed recently, especially among the younger audiences? 

Karan Bedi: A lot is happening. Since television has essentially moved to OTT, and digital is now the primary way people access TV, it has opened up new content types. As the old saying goes, “film is stories, TV is characters”. We’re seeing a lot more character-driven shows as core entertainment consumption shifts to digital platforms. This is the next evolution of entertainment; it’s mainstream now. 

You’re seeing more experimentation and micro-genres. For example, we’ll be launching a long-running procedural legal drama next year, a homegrown Hindi show. In the reality space, you’ll see interesting, innovative shows. We are the only ones doing digital-first reality, which allows for significant innovation beyond simply airing an episode every evening. There’s much more you can do with captive reality that isn’t possible on television. 

How is Amazon leveraging the intersection of content and commerce, especially across MX Player and Amazon platforms, to create seamless shoppable ad experiences for Indian consumers? 

Girish Prabhu: The opportunity lies in enabling newer, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, which are popular with young shoppers, to access larger video formats. Traditionally, these brands relied on performance and search advertising. Amazon, MX Player, Prime Video, Fire TV, and other first-party properties allow us to take these growing brands (many of which grow on Amazon due to scale and timely customer reach) and expose them to consumers through video formats. Traditional television advertising is cost-prohibitive for many. We are breaking that barrier, allowing brands to reach relevant customers without needing to target the entire audience, and to spend what’s appropriate for their desired outcome. MX Player helps these brands drive awareness more effectively than other formats like search. 

What role does Amazon’s rich consumer insight ecosystem play in shaping smarter, more personalized advertising on MX Player? How does it compare to traditional digital ad formats? 

Girish Prabhu: We have aggregated insights into individual and household shopping behaviour over time, including product and brand choices, and consumption patterns during life stage events or festivals like Diwali. This understanding is made available to brands to reach the right consumers at the right time. 

Our offering is outcome-focused, not just ad impressions. We prioritize the relevance of the message to consumers, which drives better outcomes. The value we bring is the ability to reach the right customers across all our formats. 

What are the biggest shifts you are seeing in advertiser expectations today, and how is Amazon Advertising evolving its product offering to stay ahead of these demands? 

Girish Prabhu: The biggest shift with digital is the superior ability to reach and deliver the right message compared to traditional advertising. Traditional advertising often relies on proxies, which are shortcuts when true understanding is lacking. For example, assuming men watch certain shows on national television between 8 pm and 10 pm is a proxy. Digital’s ability to be continuously up-to-date is appealing to advertisers, who are now eliminating these proxies and traditional media plans, which are inherently driven by such assumptions. Advertisers are looking for outcomes at a good price. This is what digital offers, and why platforms like Prime Video, MX Player, Fire TV, Alexa, and our shopping products are valuable. Ultimately, it’s about outcomes, not just impressions. We focus on the outcome driven by the advertising action and can tune this over time without relying on proxies.