The Battle of Amazon vs. Walmart for the Future of Shoppable TV

With MrBeast’s $100 Million Prime Video Megadeal, It’s “Game On!”

Amazon’s recently announced $100 million megadeal with MrBeast to develop a new game show for Prime Video underscores its ambitions to own the future of performance TV. It’s also an area where Amazon is—at least for the moment—playing from behind.

Amazon’s past experiments with shoppable TV, including fashion competition “Making the Cut” and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty annual fashion shows, haven’t gotten traction.

So Walmart’s recent foray into shoppable TV with “Add to Heart,” a holiday romcom built around shoppable product integrations and distributed on YouTube, TikTok and Roku, must’ve made Amazon squirm. Coupled with the brick-and-mortar giant’s recent acquisition of Vizio, Walmart suddenly catapulted ahead in the battle for the future of shoppable TV.

Amazon wasted little time counter-punching with the MrBeast deal—a move that seems designed to finally get viewers over the hurdle of making purchases through their TVs.