Netflix is shifting its marketing focus to individual titles instead of its brand, finding a general messaging of value and breadth-of-content is no longer compelling, according to a New York Times article.
The video streaming industry leader, with 230 million subscribers worldwide, finds subscribers restless and prone to canceling to jump to emerging competition from Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock and others. They became viable alternatives in terms of value and content in just the past few years.
“For all of Netflix’s success over the years, the company has never quite found its footing in marketing,” says the New York Times article by Nicole Sperling. “That is primarily because of the company’s core tenet is that the streaming service itself is its greatest marketer, and spending on expensive commercials or advertisements does not always improve viewer engagement.”
Now, that playbook has changed. Netflix is on its third chief marketing officer in just three years, which is a high turnover. Netflix marketing chief Marian Lee came from music streamer Spotify. The company also grapples with introducing a cheaper ad-supported tier to match competitors and a crackdown on password sharing to curb freeloaders.
In the past, Netflix put marketing emphasis on pleasing existing subscribers with individualized program recommendations and website navigation prowess. But Netflix increasingly fights battles on many fronts to attract new subs, recapture defectors and hold existing subs as rivals multiplied.
An example of the individual-title focus is sleuth movie “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” the pricey original that premiered (a sequel to a Lionsgate’s “Knives Out” theatrical film that grossed $312 million worldwide in 2019).
Netflix’s “Glass Onion” Daniel Craig mystery received TV commercials supporting a one-week theatrical release during Thanksgiving, generating a reported $15 million in ticket sales. Then more TV commercials, a pop-up escape room in Los Angeles to fan publicity, and a handful of murder mystery dinners publicity stunts supported its Netflix bow at Christmas time.
“It racked up 279.7 million hours watched in the first 28 days, which Netflix said made it the fourth-most-watched English-language film on the service,” says the New York Times article.
For “Murder Mystery 2,” an Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston film that premiered weeks ago on Netflix, title-specific marketing included NFL football TV commercials, and a premiere in Paris with a publicity stunt built around an unwitting American couple going to the premiere.
Though Netflix lavished individualized marketing, a New York Post film review called it “more crap from careless Netflix.” However, Netflix said its viewers liked the lighthearted intrigue movie.
“Netflix’s marketing budget has remained fairly consistent, increasing to $2.5 billion in 2022 from $2.2 billion in 2020” and supports 400 employees, says the New York Times article. Hollywood major movie studios invested around $1 billion each a year on marketing each prior to the pandemic, but Netflix and studios are not comparable. That’s because Netflix is a 24/7 service while studios release just over a dozen films a year, with each a rifle-shot marketing project.
For Netflix, the marketing spend is dwarfed by its program budget of $17 billion a year.
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