Amazon Prime Video & Studios CMO Ukonwa Ojo: The best marketing combines brand with culture

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Amazon Prime Video & Studios CMO Ukonwa Ojo’s life as a marketer began with a career assessment test. After five years in finance, Ojo realized she wasn’t passionate about being a business analyst and wanted to find a different path. So she took an online personality test and was presented with three positions she’d be best suited for: A lawyer, general manager or brand manager. 

“My entire family had been telling me my whole life that I should have been a lawyer,” she laughs. “My parents would be like, ‘This is exactly correct.’”

But it was brand management, which she didn’t know much about, that caught her eye. Looking back now, she sees parallels between marketing and the law: Both require the ability to influence and drive quantifiable impact.

“Marketing is influence on a large scale, whereas as a lawyer you influence the judge, you influence the jury,” she says.

Ojo went to business school in 2003 to get a better understanding of brand management and took a summer internship at General Mills’ Betty Crocker. She was a key part of the team that successfully led efforts to widen the appeal of the brand’s cornbread product with African American consumers. She says she loved that marketing married creativity with a responsibility to produce business growth. 

“I went back to business school like, ‘Yes, this is my calling,’” she says. 

Since then, the exec has risen through the marketing ranks at companies like General Mills and Unilever and held CMO roles at Coty, MAC Cosmetics and, now, Amazon Prime Video & Studios. 

 Ojo points to three similarities in the marketing mechanics of both beauty and streaming: The importance of stellar creative and aesthetic, the critical role of buzz in driving interest to the product and the importance of brand ambassadors. 

Since joining Amazon in September 2020, she’s overseen the brand’s mega marketing campaign for Coming 2 America, which hit No. 1 on Nielsen’s U.S. streaming rankings the week it premiered. In the last several years, Amazon Studios has become a formidable opponent to streamers like Netflix and has put considerable effort and investment into its original content arm, producing hits like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Jack Ryan. 

The self-described “classic extrovert” says one of the first things people sense when they meet her is how much she loves what she does. 

“In the spirit of, ‘It takes 10,000 hours to be good at something,’ it's easy to rack up those 10,000 hours if you love it and you want to spend the time doing it.” Below, she shares more of her story. 

 1. What has had the most impact on your perspective as a marketer?

Very early in my career while working at General Mills, I switched from managing big brands like Cheerios to running a smaller organic brand called Cascadian Farm. Not only was it a more complex operation, the brand had a rabid fan base and community but a much smaller budget. I learned to market in a way that was more personal and more likely to build a community of advocates. The smaller budgets made it so that we had to earn rather than pay for attention. Those skills stayed with me and I have used them in every role since.

2. What’s changed the most about your job as a marketer over the course of your career?

I’ve always believed that the best marketing lies at the intersection between brands and culture. This belief has never really changed. It’s a marketing philosophy that I adopted early in my career and it has stood the test of time. What has dramatically changed are the everyday channels and avenues that bring that philosophy to life. As an example, social media has gone from something we did in addition to everything else, to something squarely at the heart of what we do. 

3. What’s the hardest part of a marketer’s job today?

Breaking through the clutter and earning attention. In our history as humans, we’ve never had more competition for our time and attention. It is vast and unrelenting. We have to continue to raise the bar on innovation and creativity to cut through.

4. Tell us about the marketing campaign you’re most proud of working on in your career.

I have to say I love all my children lol. Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate to be a part of incredibly fun campaigns. From “Turn Off to Turn On” at Durex, “Love at First Taste” at Knorr, the rebrand of COVERGIRL, to the most recent Selena and Viva Glam campaigns at MAC Cosmetics, and of course, the launch of Coming 2 America. Every campaign has taught me tons and given me the opportunity to work with and lead some of the most incredible teams in the world.

5. What’s a marketing campaign you wish you’d thought of and why?

This Girl Can was a very successful campaign that launched while I was living in the UK in 2015. The first time I saw the ad on YouTube, I was absolutely in awe. I shared it everywhere I could. I genuinely wished I had thought of it. It was bold, relevant, real, modern, authentic, fresh, and incredibly fun to watch. 

6. What’s your must read, watch or listen for all marketers?

How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp for sure. With constant innovation in our industry, it is so easy to be distracted and always focus on the new shiny object. How Brands Grow is a great reminder of the fundamentals of branding and marketing that should underpin everything we do.

7. What’s an under the radar brand you’re watching and why?

I don’t have any specific brand I am currently watching. To be honest, I’m more of a student of culture. I possess an insane amount of curiosity when it comes to learning about what makes us do what we do. This piques my interest more than a specific thing or product.

 8. Name a product you can’t live without (that doesn’t connect you to the internet) and tell us why.

My bed. I generally operate at a high level of intensity. I tend to say that I live my life in sprints (versus marathons). To balance out my intensity, I am a strong proponent of sleep, rest, and recovery. My bed is my best friend. At the end of the workday, I simply can’t wait to get in it.

9. Finish this sentence. If I weren’t a marketer, I would be…

I would run my own business. I am a descendant of a long line of entrepreneurs. Both my Mom and Dad started and ran their own businesses, so entrepreneurship is in my blood.

10. Finish this sentence: The marketer I most want to see do this questionnaire is…

Esi Eggleston Bracey, EVP & COO NA Beauty and Personal Care at Unilever

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