Prime Video now allows content suppliers to send artwork variations for cover, poster, and hero artwork in addition to your main marketing asset. These variants are an opportunity to showcase different aspects of your title, highlighting various characters, themes, and genres that might appeal to different audience segments. You can also feature different talent or cast members prominently in different artwork versions, which can help attract diverse audiences who might be drawn to specific performers. Artwork variants help create a more personalized viewing experience, because Prime Video can present the most relevant artwork version to multiple different customer segments.
Best practices for personalized artwork
We recommend emphasizing the depth, breadth, and diversity of images by focusing on themes (romance, action, LGBT, strong female lead, and so on), or on specific talent to be featured. Localization is supported, and highly encouraged for personalized art if you deliver localized main/default art. (Variants will not appear to customers unless their preferred UI language is available.)
The following example shows personalized artwork for a single content asset, focusing on four distinct themes (action; specific cast; strong female lead; romance) in addition to the default.
To leverage personalization:
- A minimum of 3 variants are required.
- Up to 20 variants are supported per artwork type and language.
- We recommend between 5-7 variants for most effective and successful personalization.
The following screenshot breaks the example above into its thematic categories and across 3 additional languages.
Delivery requirements for personalized artwork
Variant artwork references are accepted only via MMC, using either partial or full delivery. No MEC references are accepted when you deliver personalized art. The same editorial requirements and technical specs apply as for Cover, Poster, and Hero art. Please note that we require a default version of the artwork being delivered in order to surface personalized artwork. For example, if en-US cover variants are submitted, Prime Video requires a default en-US cover asset to be available, either delivered in the past or in the same MMC as the variant delivery.
Image type |
Aspect ratio |
Title type |
Purpose |
Namespace |
Identifier |
Cover art variant |
16:9 |
Movies and Seasons |
cover |
Variant |
· Alphanumeric |
Poster art variant |
2:3 |
Movies and Seasons |
poster |
Variant |
· Alphanumeric |
Hero art variant |
16:0 |
Movies and Seasons |
hero |
Variant |
· Alphanumeric |
The following table highlights the MMC fields that apply to personalized art variants.
Field |
Definition and notes |
Accepted values |
Prime Video usage |
Inventory |
Identifies all individual assets being delivered as part of the package (such as mezzanine files, timed text, audio, and so on) along with asset-specific metadata. |
Required |
|
Image |
manifest:Image |
||
ImageID |
ID used to reference the image throughout the MMC. |
Required for image delivery |
|
@Purpose |
Identifies the type of artwork being delivered and determines placement. |
boxart, cover, hero, poster, title |
Required |
@Language |
Identifies the language of the artwork being delivered. |
Required |
|
@Width |
Width, in pixels, of the image being delivered. |
String (for example, 1920) |
Optional |
@Height |
Height, in pixels, of the image being delivered. |
String (for example, 1080) |
Optional |
@AssetIntent |
Used to identify whether artwork is specific to a region or whether artwork is a variant. |
Required for variants or region-specific artwork |
|
Type |
Used to identify artwork that is specific to a region and shouldn’t be displayed elsewhere, like compliance versions. If not included, artwork will be considered eligible to be displayed in all regions. |
Region |
Optional |
Subtype |
Used to identify artwork that is specific to a region and shouldn’t be displayed elsewhere, like compliance versions. If not included, artwork will be considered eligible to be displayed in all regions. |
Country codes |
Optional |
AssetReference |
Used to identify whether an image is considered a variant. |
Required for variants |
|
OtherIdentifier |
Used to identify whether an image is considered a variant. |
Required for variants |
|
Namespace |
identifies that an image is a variant. |
Variant |
Required for variants |
Identifier |
ID used to differentiate a unique variant. |
Alphanumeric, no special characters supported except underscore ( _ ). |
Required for variants |
PictureGroups |
A list of Picture Groups. Selection of images associated with a title or series. |
Required |
|
PictureGroupID |
The picture group ID that refers to the parent (movie, episode or series) Content ID. md:picturegroupid:[scheme]:[SSID] |
Required for image delivery |
|
PictureID |
Required by the XSD, not used by Prime Video. |
Value is ignored; can be blank |
Not used, but required |
ImageID |
ID used to reference the image throughout the MMC. |
Required for image delivery |
|
Experiences |
The Experience section of the MMC groups together Presentations and/or Playable Sequences along with Picture Groups to define the customer experience. |
Required |
|
ExperienceID |
ID used to reference the Experience throughout the MMC. |
Required |
|
ALIDExperienceMaps |
Relates ALIDs to the Experiences associated with that content. |
Required |
|
ALIDExperienceMap |
Experiences can be localized and so a single ALID can only map to one Experience |
Required |
|
ALID |
A Logical Asset ID (ALID) is used to identify a set of content (such as a Logical Asset) associated with avails in an EMA Avails submission. |
Required |
|
ExperienceID |
Required |
||
Presentations |
One Presentation instance is required for each set of conformed tracks. Not required for partial MMC delivery that only includes artwork references. |
Required by AudioVisual |
The following example shows a variant for Global delivery via MMC.<manifest:Image ImageID="md:imageid:org:partneralias:SKU:cover.art.en">
<md:Purpose>cover</md:Purpose>
<md:Language>en-US</md:Language>
<md:AssetIntent>
<md:AssetReference>
<md:OtherIdentifier>
<md:Namespace>Variant</md:Namespace>
<md:Identifier>Var123</md:Identifier>
</md:OtherIdentifier>
</md:AssetReference>
</md:AssetIntent>
<manifest:ContainerReference>
<manifest:ContainerLocation>variant123.jpg</manifest:ContainerLocation>
</manifest:ContainerRefer
For full MMC artwork guidance, see Artwork delivery.
Sample variants
The following sample MMC files provide examples of a variants-only partial delivery, and a full delivery with the default image and variants included.
