Amazon Ads Launches Back-to-College Partnership Campaign

Amazon Ads has launched a multi-phase brand partnership campaign, developed by its creative arm Brand Innovation Lab, as part of a back-to-college season push. 

The 'First Day Ready' campaign features brand sponsors Gatorade, Michael Kors and SharkNinja – all of which have been paired with an influencer ambassador across shoppable video, custom brand experiences and creator content. 

According to Amazon, the brand campaign will culminate in Off To College with Kane Brown, a livestreamed concert presented by Amazon Music.

“Brands used to buy a TV spot, now they can buy a moment – one that spans streaming, creator content, physical experiences and a livestreamed concert – all connected back to purchase and measured in one place,” Kate McCagg, Global Head of Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab, said of the campaign.

Meeting consumers in ‘life’s most meaningful moments’

Each brand featured in the campaign has a custom video spot and a dedicated brand store page on the Amazon website – all of which feature Prime Video placements and premium influencer creative content.

This, Amazon says, can help create a more immersive shopping experience and amplify brand visibility, awareness and engagement. 

Alongside this, Amazon will be moving the campaign to the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the college's orientation with a block party – with each sponsor having its own storefront. 

Gatorade, for instance, will be featuring a college tailgate experience with games tied to Propel powder, Gatorade Zero powder and Gatorlyte powder.

Michael Kors, meanwhile, will have a Jet Set Lounge with a giant inflatable handbag, photo booth and charm personalisation bar – while SharkNinja will be promoting its Crispi air fryer and InstaChill technology through a frozen lounge and a kitchen counter. 

“Great media isn't about reaching audiences, it's about understanding where they are in life's most meaningful moments and delivering value when it matters most,” says Dave Kersey, VP, Global Head of Media at SharkNinja. 

“The transition to college is a defining milestone for Gen Z, and through First Day Ready, we're able to engage students in a way that reflects how they truly discover and shop today. 

“As a company built around solving everyday problems, SharkNinja is uniquely positioned to support consumers through every life stage, from first dorms and apartments to growing families and beyond.”

The back-to-school market

With this campaign, Amazon is capitalising on a fast-growing market: the back-to-school shoppers. 

According to research from the National Retail Federation, college students and their families are expected to spend US$103.5bn on back-to-school shopping supplies – a significant jump from last year’s US$88.8bn.

The time period these shoppers are making purchases is wide-ranging too, says the National Retail Federation.

Just over a quarter (27%) of college shoppers say they plan to make their last back-to-school purchase three weeks to one month before school starts, while close to half (48%) say they believe they will make their final purchase one to two weeks before the start of school and 25% say it will be the week school starts.

Who are Amazon’s key partners?

• NVIDIA: Amazon and NVIDIA recently announced a major expansion of their strategic collaboration to meet surging global demand for AI infrastructure as demand continues to accelerate. Building on already-rapid customer adoption of NVIDIA-accelerated compute on AWS, an Amazon company, the companies plan to deploy two million additional NVIDIA GPUs across AWS’s global infrastructure and deepen their work together across AI factories, CPUs, networking, open models, data processing and robotics.
• Accenture: Accenture has a decade-long collaboration with AWS through the Accenture Amazon Web Services Business Group (AABG). The partnership combines the resources, technical expertise and industry knowledge of Accenture and AWS, all through a single team. As a result, it enables enterprises to accelerate their pace of digital innovation and to realise incremental business value from cloud adoption and transformation.
• OpenAI: In February 2026, Amazon and OpenAI announced a strategic partnership to co-create a Stateful Runtime Environment powered by OpenAI models, available on Amazon Bedrock for AWS customers to build generative AI applications and agents at production scale. Through this partnership, OpenAI and Amazon are developing customised models to power Amazon’s customer-facing operations.
• Salesforce: Amazon has a global strategic partnership with Salesforce through AWS to make it easier for customers to seamlessly and securely manage their data across Salesforce and AWS while safely and responsibly using the latest Gen AI technologies in applications and workflows.