The Boys' Personalized Ad Joke in Season 4, Episode 5 Was Inspired by a Real Amazon Request, Creator Says

Since The Boys premiered in 2019, it’s clear that no one is safe from mockery of the hit Prime Video series. Not even the company behind its host streaming platform…

After the season 4 finale, “Beware the Jab, Son,” aired, creator Eric Kripke took to Twitter to reveal that one of his most meta gags was actually inspired by a real-life request from Amazon.

In the latest installment, there’s a scene where A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) and The Deep (Chace Crawford) are tasked with attending V52, an event similar to Comic-Con or Disney’s D23 Expo. While the latter teases an upcoming project, he explains that each title will have digitally personalized advertisements. For example, if a white person watches a certain show, like The Deep’s “three-time MTV Award winner” Rising Tide, they will see a character holding a bottle of IPA beer, whereas if black people tune in, they will. . see this same character holding a bottle of peach cognac.

“You know, personalized digital product placement is a real thing, guys,” Kripke wrote on Twitter, along with a link to an article that explains how networks and advertisers are starting to roll out the method. “Amazon offered it to us for[The Boys]we said no thanks, but we’ll definitely make a joke about it in season 4. And then we did.”

“Virtual product placement presents a real opportunity for certain types of brands that don’t require hands-on interaction, that don’t require verbal mentions, where you can still place things visibly in the frame or on the screen,” Aaron Frank, senior vice president of marketing, insights and strategy at BENLabs, told Marketing Brew in 2023, around the time Kripke and his team were reportedly writing Season 4.

Season 4 of The Boys is currently streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping every Thursday. For more, check out our latest coverage of the series: