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These days, media giants such as AOL, Yahoo, Hulu and YouTube have some heavy competition in their midst. Amazon has started placing preroll ads within original series pilots that are available for streaming on Amazon Prime Instant. The company is currently collaborating with several advertisers on future video campaigns. Amazon users can share which TV pilots they wish to see promoted to series as distributed on Prime Instant Video. Geico is slotted as the presenting sponsor for the

company’s “pilot season.” As a portion of the agreement, Geico will have 15-second TV spots streaming prior to episodes, as well as banners on landing pages.

Only series pilots are available for free to Amazon users. A subscription fee is required to access further episodes.

Amazon’s most significant efforts in the field of video advertising began late in 2013. Consumers who viewed the first few episodes of particular television shows through the Kindle Fire were shown a variety of video advertisements. In order to bolster their activity, Amazon has collaborated with major TV networks to offer advertisements during many of their shows.

Last month, Amazon shared details about a new deal with FreeWheel, a video ad-tech company. The company will now begin playing commercials before how-to videos and movie trailers on the site. According to industry insiders, the partnership is intended to draw the company closer to providing more videos for advertisers over the next 12 to 24 months.

The online video market has proven to be a valuable one for many retailers. The national research organization eMarketer estimates that U.S. businesses will devote $5.75 billion on video advertisements in 2014. At this time, YouTube holds about 20 percent of this burgeoning market. Based on their latest endeavors into video marketing, Amazon hopes to take a big chunk out of the number in the near future.