At Amazon Ads’ Fashion & Beauty Summit, industry leaders made one thing clear: brands can no longer sit on the sidelines, they must participate in culture to stay relevant.
Advertising is no longer about catchy slogans plastered on billboards. Today, culture dictates how brands earn attention, and the future of advertising lies in embedding brands inside cultural moments, not above them.
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That was the central message at last week’s Amazon Ads Fashion and Beauty Summit, where leaders explored the convergence of culture, entertainment, and commerce.
“They aren’t just products. They’re expressions of identity and culture,” said Alexys Coronel, Multi-Vertical Leader at Amazon Ads, after kicking off the day with a game of matching history’s iconic cultural moments.
From shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty to fashion drops and TikTok-fueled beauty trends, audiences aren’t just consuming culture, they’re creating it. Which means the old, top-down model of advertising is obsolete. Instead, brands must show up authentically in the spaces where people connect, stream, and express themselves.
That’s where Amazon Ads sees its role: a cultural connector. By bridging entertainment and commerce, it helps brands move beyond media buys and metrics toward resonance, emotional connection, and storytelling people actually want to engage with.
Unilever, for example, partnered with Amazon Ads to launch an AI-powered personalized makeup try-on, giving audiences exactly what they wanted: the ability to picture themselves in full glam without leaving bed. Saks, too, is leaning into these cultural moments.
With new partnerships, including Netflix streaming supply, Amazon Ads is making it easier for brands to meet audiences inside the entertainment experiences they love most. The result? Advertising that doesn’t feel like advertising, but rather part of the conversation.
As formula-driven campaigns fade, the path forward is clear: the future belongs to brands that create cultural experiences, spark dialogue, and lean into shared values.