The marketing and advertising strategy of Netflix
How Netflix manages to carry out its studied advertising campaigns
We analyze marketing and advertising strategy of Netflix, and how it uses controversy to advertise its products.
Netflix, the best-known series streaming company, has emerged as one of the most creative companies in the world. His self-confidence, daring and courage when announcing his best-known series achieve the desired effect for the American company: Create controversy in conventional advertising media and become a trending topic. A minimum investment to reach the largest possible audience.
After creating numerous advertising actions in all countries such as its Gifs campaign, using FaceSwap technology, placing a giant billboard in Madrid or a cocaine watch to promote Narcos in Paris. And just like we analyzed the marketing strategy of Zara and Tesla, we’ll analyze marketing and advertising strategy of Netflix, based on 5 steps to achieve its goal.
1. Netflix as the pretty girl of the film and series media
Marketing and advertising strategy of Netflix begins by generating content. Think about it, whether or not you have an account on the VOD content platform is almost the least of it. With the sole exception of HBO productions; Netflix Originals (series produced directly by Netflix) are the ones that beat the press over and over again and the ones that generate noise within a hypersaturated market such as that of series. At a time when all brands are betting on their own platforms, Netflix has already placed different series and movies at the big galas such as the Emmys and the Oscars with great directors like Scorsese making exclusive films.
2. Activate the local by offending only a few people
Let’s go back to advertising. Many of us may make jokes among friends about the corruption of the PP, but until now no big company, much less from the series or the cinema, had dared to take those jokes to tarpaulins several meters in the center of Madrid.
Netflix compares one of the biggest drug lords in history with Rajoy or Cospedal, through account books, in a national wink that we are all capable of capturing with the naked eye, will probably turn the odd popular voter against him. But everyone outside that category will see it as a playful step forward regarding one of the issues that most concerns Spanish society.
They have carried out a campaign that has smeared the PP, but in which they have made it clear that any political party can be scalded. And with all this, they have earned a lot of honesty by fully connecting with their audience, eminently young.
3. It is not the product, it is the game with the medium of the message
With its Narcos campaigns, the chain has put all the meat on the grill, with coca as a constant in its advertising strategy. There were those who considered Escobar’s White Christmas from Puerta del Sol to be an apology for drug addiction.
The platform has experimented with provocation on many occasions, taking risks with campaigns that should have gone viral and winning the bet. The occasional German was offended to see their currywurst turned into the stuff of cannibalistic jokes in the center of Potsdamerplatz to promote the Santa Clarita Diet. France joined during the launch of the company that was changing the GIFs of its opis based on the latest relevant event of the French news.
Already in the last edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Netflix managed to monopolize all the conversation around the festival about how a streaming company might be able to start changing the audiovisual paradigm.
4. Nothing is unbeatable as a good use of Twitter
A brilliant use of Twitter through its community manager. And it is that when Dalas, one of the most popular youtubers says that one of your productions is shit and a fake pretends to be you to discredit them, the best option is to make the community see that you are not only aware of the controversial, but, in a very subtle way, you are in favor of attacking the youtuber.
Brutal @NetflixES dando cera al tonto de Dalas pic.twitter.com/IxR6sbPdhN
— Estrimo (@Estrimo) August 30, 2017
5. Repeat until conquering the world’s domestic market
The Emmys have just been, the most important awards of the year in the world of TV and series. Whether they knew it in advance or not, the truth is that they made sure that the media talked about Netflix again. To do this they used this brilliant strategy:
Who’s behind this billboard??? pic.twitter.com/qVZAIAeB4r
— Claudia Eller (@Variety_Claudia) September 5, 2017
Some enigmatic billboards in the United States showed in a minimalist visual montage that “Netflix is a joke”. It was possible that he was a professional hater of the company or even one of his rivals.
But no. The turn has been revealed the same night of the ceremony, where a clip with stars of the stature of Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle or Ellen DeGeneres with which we discovered that the joke to which the posters were referring was passed. It was none other than the stand-up comedy programs with which Netflix has nurtured its platform. The publicity clip is shown during the ceremony and it no longer matters if their fictions were awarded statuettes or not. Variety, Hollywood Reporter and the rest of the cascading media would talk about Netflix in their Emmys special.
Netflix is opaque when it comes to showing the audience success of its shows. We know that the company spent 714 million dollars on advertising in 2015 (more than in 2014, which was 533). This, to the best of our knowledge, would be approximately 10.5% of your budget.
Marketing and advertising strategy of Netflix works, its subscribers grew by more than 40% worldwide. A figure that continues to exceed the quarterly expectations of investors and that will make the company grow to be the queen of domestic content.
Related: Marketing and advertising strategy of Zara.
Related: Marketing and advertising strategy of Tesla.
