Alexa Market Launch, Italy & Spain

Context

• Introducing Alexa to Italy and Spain into markets with effectively zero product awareness and low Amazon brand recognition. The default perception in both: Alexa was niche tech, for early adopters, with no obvious place in everyday Mediterranean life.
• The brief came with the same operating constraint as most Amazon EMEA work: build something that could land natively in two distinct cultures without funding two fully separate productions, and without losing global brand cohesion.
• The cultural insight was that Italy and Spain share more than they differ when it comes to family rituals, meals, music, multi-generational gatherings, but the surface details (the food, the songs, the casts) absolutely have to be native to each market or the spot reads as outsider work.

My role and scope

• Led local creative direction and production coordination across both markets, one cohesive concept, two parallel productions, simultaneous launch.

Goal

• Introduce Alexa to Italian and Spanish audiences with storytelling credible enough to dismantle the 'not for me' perception.
• Position the product inside cherished family traditions, so the audience sees Alexa enabling something they already love, not interrupting it.
• Prove that a single creative concept could land natively in two distinct Southern European markets without flattening either.

Strategy

• Anchor on a shared, emotionally loaded Mediterranean ritual: a young man preparing a surprise anniversary dinner for his parents, with Alexa helping him pull it off.
• Build a unified core concept (the same character beat, the same emotional arc) and let the cultural specifics, food, music, casting, language, go fully native in each market.
• Bridge modern technology to family tradition. The product is the quiet enabler; the parents' reaction is the payoff. Alexa earns its place by helping the protagonist do something they care about, not by demonstrating its capabilities.

Execution

• Produced parallel versions of the commercial for Italy and Spain, same core narrative, same shot structure, same emotional arc.
• Cultural customisation per market: tailored scripts and casts; iconic local dishes (pasta in Italy, tortilla in Spain) at the centre of the dinner; locally beloved love songs as the emotional carrier.
• Maintained visual consistency across the two productions, same cinematography language, same pacing, so the brand cohesion was felt without flattening the cultural specifics.