Victor Lu explains how Twitch is re-imagining culture-first advertising at Amazon.
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Live, long-form, and gloriously unscripted, Twitch sits inside Amazon’s universe and is re-imagining how brands connect with audiences.
We spoke to Victor Lu, Global Head of the Twitch Brand Partnership Studio—which is part of the Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab—about how advertising is becoming more interactive and why the best brand moments feel less like ads and more like shared experiences.
For people who hear “Twitch” and think gaming only, what does Twitch Brand Partnership Studio do?
In some shape or form, we’ve existed since the dawn of Twitch, empowering brands to show up on Twitch and aligning them with premium, creator-driven content and interactive technology that spurs active viewer behavior in the moment. This helps them engage audiences in ways they can’t really do anywhere else. A lot of the time we’re educating as we ideate, taking brands through the journey of Twitch. Because everything is live and interactive, it’s not about a finished product; it’s about the hours you spend with creators, the community, and the brand.
Within Amazon’s broader universe—Fire TV, Alexa, Prime Video—what is Twitch’s unique selling proposition for advertisers?
Brands should absolutely think across Amazon to optimize their marketing budgets! Twitch reaches a high concentration of millennial and Gen Z viewers with incredible engagement that can help brands make a great brand impression on a hard-to-reach youthful audience.
I think the key differentiator is the format: Twitch is live and long-form. You’re reaching people in the moment, so my team always needs to ask, “What creative idea makes sense for someone watching a streamer right in the moment, and how will they react?”
That immediacy sounds risky. Why does it work?
The format breeds authenticity. It’s kind of like watching TV that talks back to you. In a world of AI, you can’t fake Twitch; people notice immediately if you try. As a team, our North Star is to be the best live interactive creator studio on the planet. The creator economy has driven seismic shifts in content, media, and direct audience relationships, and Twitch is a great way for brands to engage in this area.
What does that look like in action?
Prime Video had a show called Secret Level, a 15-minute narrative animation series based on popular games. We secured rights to one of the episodes with an exclusive Twitch stream watch along with the streamers community. We partnered with a streamer who watched a full Dungeons & Dragons episode with her community, presented by HP Omen as an exclusive sneak peek. It was a really nice moment for her and her fans to share this!
Think of Twitch as the next-generation drive-in. Thousands show up to watch together with their favorite streamer playing their favorite game, making their favorite craft, cooking, chatting with their community, playing music, or even watching a movie or show. The magic is getting our three customers (in Amazon terms)—the viewer, the streamer, and the brand—into harmony.
How does the Twitch community show up in brand activation?
Every streamer is a channel.
So Twitch is like TV with millions of channels, and every time someone goes live, it’s an event. We want to place brands in these events and create "you had to be there" moments by productizing the behaviors that are native to the community. The best creators constantly talk to their communities in chat. You type, they read your message and respond, and everyone sees the back-and-forth. It’s really an art form; streamers are presenting, watching chat, and managing their own tech, like a live TV host with three points of contact. Our job is to make brand integrations easy and enjoyable. We survey streamers, gather feedback, and improve the experience. If streamers are comfortable, their communities will take the leap with them, talk about a brand, try something new, and integrate in ways they haven’t before.
Why do brands use Twitch Brand Partnerships Studio rather than work directly with streamers?
We focus on things that no one else can do alone. We have access to Twitch products; we can build on top of Twitch in ways that are great for brands and for engagement. We scout talent constantly. A lot of brands do work directly with creators, but with the Twitch Brand Partnership Studio, we want to present a strategic partnership framework to brands and streamers that results in a deeply engaged experience for viewers. That's our focus.
Tell us a bit more about the team behind all this work.
We have an incredible team with people who are all far smarter than I am. They’re highly specialized experts in trending culture and Twitch, such as creative strategists who ideate and provide creative direction and exclusive innovation to brands, activation managers who run delivery and logistics across our campaigns, producers who lead the creative output, and an influencer relations talent team whose members have an encyclopedic knowledge of Twitch talent to procure for our programs.
Creators are the new brands; they have their own rules, speed, and lack of red tape. A traditional studio might spend 12 months and a huge budget on a show. A streamer can make music on the street and have an instant hit. We’re shaping a new form of content with a new kind of creative force and building advertising within that.
Let’s talk trust and integrity. How do you allay advertisers’ fears about advertising in a live environment?
Most brands nowadays have worked with influencers of some kind, so they understand that the mechanics and approach are different than a deliberate, traditional advertising campaign. My favorite question from brands, which we get about once a year is, “Does it have to be live?” It’s a great teaching moment. I tell the team, “We’re all teachers.” We specialize in a corner of very influential internet culture, and we should be confident in guiding brands through the Twitch ethos with patience and passion, whether it’s doing a livestream, creating a commercial spot, or showing up IRL. When clients are on a live stream with us and someone in chat writes, “This is a great stream; thanks to X brand,” that’s an organic declaration in a commercial setting. You can’t buy that kind of moment the old way. On Twitch, it happens in the moment, and integration is authentic.
What’s really exciting is how we can drive real results and long-term value for customers by focusing on measuring engagement in various ways—whether it’s viewership, sentiment (Twitch is a great way to gauge real-time feedback from consumers), brand mentions, or, importantly, brand lift and affinity with this hard-to-reach audience. The promise of bringing a brand into cultural moments and trends is backed by these types of measurements and shows brands how and where to continue their engagement journeys.
Give us a peek at how your team is working with other parts of Amazon.
Twitch has its own culture—every team at Amazon does—but we love a great crossover. NBA Creator Casts with Prime Video is coming this season. It’s an alternative way of broadcasting—a specific Prime Video feed on a creator’s Twitch channel. We piloted a version of this in the U.S. with another Prime Video Live Sports offering in the National Women’s Soccer League and a separate futbol event in Brazil, with great results. So we’re incredibly excited that we can produce this exclusive experience with NBA at a high standard, learn from it, and continue to build with our wonderful brand partners for the ’25–’26 season.
Finally, why is Twitch so special to you?
A phrase I use all the time is “Culture is currency.” Twitch is a cultural proposition; it lives and breathes in a way that’s fluid, that’s inclusive, and that surprises and delights because you never know what will happen next. Twitch is constantly the culture of NOW—and we trade on it, productizing behaviors and making brands part of it all. I love that I get to be part of that.