Amazon Screens Web Movies with Product, Credit Card Tie-Ins

Linking some pretty big Hollywood names with some equally big brands, online retailer Amazon will give Web visitors the chance to watch five short movies during the holiday season — followed by a chance to buy the products featured on the small screen.

Dubbed “Amazon Theater”, the feature will offer a new four- to seven-minute film each week for the next five weeks. The current offering, which launched Nov. 9, is “Portrait”, starring Minnie Driver as a hard-driving corporate executive who discovers the importance of inner beauty.

Viewers will also discover the”importance” of Sephora cosmetics, Motorola cellphones and handbags and accessories from Nordstrom, which are used in the film without clear logos but which show up in the final credits alongside the actors. They also show up as clickable links on the Amazon Web page from which users download the movie.

The film series is being sponsored by JP Morgan Chase, which offers an Amazon Platinum Visa card. As the official sponsor of Amazon Theater, Chase Visa ads will get prime placement on both the Amazon Theater home page and the media player. Chase will offer Amazon customers using the Amazon card a 5% discount on purchases of any of the products featured in the movies. Customers who sign up for a new Amazon Platinum Visa through the Web ads placed on the movie page will get a $30 rebate. Amazon

The movies were commissioned from Publicis Groupe’s Fallon Worldwide agency and closely resemble the series of short Web films that former Fallon president David Lubars produced for BMW AG beginning in 2001, using top-shelf Hollywood directors such as Ang Lee and Guy Ritchie.

But while those films were clearly identified with the BMW cars their hero drove, the Amazon Theater movies never refer directly to the online retailer. They do contain one inside joke: In one film called “Tooth Fairy”, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos makes a cameo appearance. In his one speaking line playing a suburban cop, he gets to call actor Chris Noth — former star of “Law and Order” and boyfriend Big on “Sex and the City” — a “loser”.

Amazon stopped advertising on television about two years ago, saying it would put those marketing savings into free shipping and lower retail prices.