Brief:

• Amazon collaborated with Disney on a secret behind-the-scenes video about "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" to help drive sales of merchandise inspired by the movie. The e-commerce giant on Thursday debuted the exclusive video on its website and Fire TV, along with clues on how to find it, Variety reported.
• Amazon customers can find the video by typing "#TheRiseOfSkywalker" into the search bar on its mobile app or Amazon.com website, or by saying, "Alexa, the Force will be with you always" into a voice remote, an Amazon Echo device paired with a display or Fire TV Cube with built-in Alexa. The video also has a dedicated page on Amazon's website.
• The landing page for the video includes a link to buy advance tickets from Fandango, and a button linked to a shopping section for "Star Wars" merchandise. Fans can also pre-order a plush toy of Baby Yoda from the Disney+ series, "The Mandalorian." The video has footage of the movie's cast, along with an interview of director J.J. Abrams, Variety reported.

Insight:

Amazon's collaboration with Disney on an exclusive video about "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" is a win-win for the companies amid the massive promotional effort for the science fiction epic's latest chapter. The effort not only helps to raise awareness for next week's theatrical release, but also will likely help to drive merchandise sales as shoppers look for holiday gifts that will please "Star Wars" fans.

The video is particularly notable for showcasing Amazon's hardware products as pathways to content discovery and shopping experiences. Instead of seeing the video splashed across Amazon's home page, customers either need to search for a specific hashtag or ask the company's Alexa voice assistant for help. In this way, Amazon highlights Alexa's versatility on its Echo and Fire TV devices, along with any smartphone running the Alexa app. The integration may help to familiarize Amazon customers with Alexa's ability to provide on-demand entertainment and voice-powered shopping. Voice commerce is still a nascent technology, but a recent survey indicated that almost a third of smart speaker owners had used a voice-powered device for shopping.

Disney's marketing efforts for "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" have incorporated some of the latest technologies to expand the movie's audience. To reach younger moviegoers who are more likely to consume media on mobile devices, Disney this week became the first company to sponsor a branded chat theme on Facebook Messenger. The integration let users of the chat app decorate their messages with digital content from the movie. In addition, to reach a target audience of mostly teenage boys, Disney last week debuted exclusive footage of the film in "Fortnite," the hit battle royale video game made by Epic Games.