Build Anticipation for Upcoming Titles

Create a detail page before your content goes live and give customers a reason to come back on launch day.

What You’ll Learn

• What customers see on a pre-release detail page.
• What you need to deliver to activate the page.
• How to set up your VAM metadata, manifest, and avails correctly.
• How to protect your parent title from accidental exposure.

What Customers See

When your pre-release detail page is live, customers see:

• Content details such as synopsis, genre, and rating (pulled from your parent metadata).
• “Coming soon” messaging (static until you provide an announce date).
• “Watch trailer” button to play your promotional trailer or teaser.
• “Add to Watchlist” button so customers can save the title for later.

Prime Video automatically adds a “COMING SOON” badge to your cover art, title metadata, and search results. You do not need to do anything extra to enable this badge.

What You Need to Deliver
To activate a pre-release detail page, you must deliver a trailer or teaser as Value-Added Material (VAM).

VAM Deliverables (one set per trailer or teaser, separate from parent content deliverables)

Parent Deliverables: Movie Pre-Release Page

Parent Deliverables: TV Pre-Release Page

Trailer Metadata Fields (MEC)
Populate these fields in your VAM MEC to ensure proper ingestion and display:

Trailer Manifest Fields (MMC)
Your MMC must include the correct SubType for trailers:

VAM Avails Fields (EMA)

Delivery Order and Matching
Follow this order to avoid ingestion failures:

1. Deliver parent metadata first. Submit your movie or season MEC before your VAM MEC. If VAM metadata arrives first, Prime Video attempts matching for 20 hours. If no match occurs, you must redeliver the VAM metadata.
2. Match IDs exactly. The ParentContentID in your VAM MEC must match the parent’s ContentID exactly, including case. Any mismatch prevents ingestion.
3. Remember: separate SKUs, linked by reference. The ParentContentID is the sole mechanism connecting your VAM to the parent. If it is incorrect or missing, the VAM will not appear on the parent’s detail page.

Avail Start Date
Your VAM avail start date must be earlier than the parent content’s launch date. For example, if your movie launches December 1, the VAM avail must start before December 1.

Artwork
Your trailer artwork should be:

1. 16:9 aspect ratio capturing the trailer context (typically a still from the trailer).
2. Free of text elements unless text is part of the overall image (e.g., a sign in the background).
3. Delivered with Purpose field = “cover” in the manifest.

If you do not provide artwork, Prime Video defaults to the parent movie or TV season artwork.

Ratings
If your VAM has a supported rating, include it in the metadata. If no rating has been assigned, an Amazon Maturity Rating (AMR) with the best value estimation is recommended.

Sequence (Multiple Trailers)
When you deliver multiple trailers, display order is determined by the SequenceInfo number:

1. Highest sequence number appears first.
2. The trailer with the highest sequence number powers the Watch Trailer button.
3. If all VAM share the same SequenceInfo (e.g., all set to 0), order defaults to latest avail start date.
4. If no distinction exists, trailers are selected at random.

Show customers exactly when your title launches and how they can watch it.

What You’ll Learn

• How to activate launch date and entitlement messaging.
• Which fields to populate in your EMA Avail.
• How messaging evolves as launch day approaches.

What Customers See

Customers with access (entitled)

• Launch date information (“Coming soon” with increasing specificity).
• How to watch (e.g., “Included with Prime”) displayed under the Watch trailer button.

Customers without access (non-entitled)

• Launch date information.
• How to watch (e.g., “Requires a Prime subscription”) with a “Subscribe” call-to-action button.

How to Activate
Meet all standard pre-release detail page requirements first. Then populate the AnnounceDate field in your movie or episode 1 EMA Avail.

Movie EMA Avail

TV Season (Episode 1) EMA Avail

How Messaging Evolves

Starting on the AnnounceDate, “Coming soon” messaging becomes more specific:

Messaging Overrides

• New trailer added: If you add a new trailer 27 to 0 days before launch, messaging temporarily changes to: “Watch trailer — New series/season/movie Date.”
• Premiere flagged: If a TV Series or Season is flagged as a Premiere, messaging changes to: “Series premiere — Date” (Season 1) or “Season premiere — Date” (Season 2+).

Keep customers engaged between episodes by showing them what is coming next.

What You’ll Learn

• How upcoming episode placements work on the storefront.
• What you need to deliver per episode.
• How to suppress spoilers while building anticipation.

What Customers See

• Next episode title and release date highlighted at the top of the page.
• Additional upcoming episodes in a carousel with “COMING SOON” badging.
• “New episode Thursday” messaging for the next upcoming episode.
• “NEW EPISODE” badge on cover art, in search results, and in metadata.
• “First 3 episodes available” messaging when 2 or 3 episodes launch with episode 1.
• “All episodes available” messaging after all episodes are live.

To avoid spoilers, the synopsis is hidden and replaced with an availability date message until the episode goes live.

How to Activate
Populate the AnnounceDate field in each individual episode’s EMA Avail.

Required Deliverables per Upcoming Episode

Episode EMA Avail Fields

If you do not provide episode artwork, Prime Video defaults to the TV season artwork.

Highlight milestone moments and drive anticipation with high-value messaging.

What You’ll Learn

• How to flag premieres and finales in your metadata.
• What customers see before and after these episodes go live.

What Customers See

• Season finale or premiere date messaging on the detail page.
• “SEASON PREMIERE” or “SEASON FINALE” badge once the episode is available.

How to Activate
Include both of the following:

• A value for AnnounceDate in the EMA Avails file.
• A DisplayIndicators attribute in the Episode MEC file.

DisplayIndicators Values

Episode MEC Field

Because your VAM content publishes before the main content goes live, take these steps to prevent accidental exposure of the parent title.

1. Use a separate SKU. Your VAM is a completely separate catalog entity. Never reuse the parent SKU. The only link is ParentContentID in the VAM MEC.
2. Keep TitleDisplayUnlimited generic. Use only the VAM type (e.g., “Trailer”, “Teaser”). Never include the parent title name. This is the most common source of unintended parent title exposure.
3. Apply the same rule to localized metadata. All localized versions of TitleDisplayUnlimited must also exclude the parent title name.
4. Check your artwork. If the title has not been publicly announced, ensure trailer artwork does not contain text overlays or title treatments that reveal the name.
5. Control timing with AnnounceDate. Do not set AnnounceDate earlier than your intended public announcement window.
6. Deliver parent metadata first. This ensures proper matching and prevents orphaned VAM from appearing without context.
7. Verify ParentContentID. Double-check that it matches the parent exactly (case-sensitive). Mismatches can cause VAM to fail ingestion or associate with the wrong title.

1. Deliver parent metadata before VAM metadata to avoid the 20-hour matching window.
2. Use a unique SKU for every trailer or teaser. Never share the parent’s SKU.
3. Set TitleDisplayUnlimited to “Trailer” or “Teaser” only. Never include the parent title.
4. Include SubType = Trailer in your MMC to prevent playback errors.
5. Submit all trailers as FVOD. Do not use SVOD or TVOD.
6. Use SequenceInfo to control which trailer powers the Watch Trailer button.
7. Set AnnounceDate before the content Start date. Equal or later dates are rejected.
8. Deliver TV series VAM using the movie avail template.

SKU and Identity

Delivery Order and Timing

Protecting Unreleased Title Information

Metadata and Manifest

Licensing and Access Models

Artwork and Display

Ratings

Enhanced Pre-Release and Episodic Features

Troubleshooting