Marketing Communications Assignment: Advertising Plan for Netflix

Question

Task: You are to play the role of a marketing communications consultant required to produce an outline integrated marketing communications plan on behalf of a client.
Your recommendations should be for advertising and marketing communications alone. Your report on marketing communications assignment will include the following sections:

ANALYSIS
• Brand analysis
• Market analysis
• Digital Visual Board

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Objectives
• Target audience selection and persona
• Creative proposals
• Media proposals
• Evaluation proposals

Answer

1. Analysis
1.1 Brand Analysis
1.1.1 History and Background
Netflix, selected in the marketing communications assignment, is an American company that operates in the entertainment industry. The organization is known for streaming movies and web series on the basis of subscription. Netflix was established in the year 1997. The organization is headquartered in California and is operating in various parts of the world. In the year 1997, the founder of Netflix invented an idea where they wanted to rent videos to subscribers with the help of mails. This concept was tested by mailing DVDs to each other. The DVD when arrived to the mail was intact and this gave rise to the core concept of Netflix (Netflix, 2022a). This is how Netflix came into action.

1.1.2 Values
The philosophy of Netflix is people over process. Netflix emphasizes on integrity of value, inclusion, diversity and excellence. The core value of the organization is to encourage decision-making by each and every employee within the firm. Information are shared within the firm broadly and transparently (Netflix, 2022b). Thinking strategically, taking decisions even if there is ambiguity, leverage data, and making long-term business decisions are the real values of the firm.

1.1.3 Product offering
Consumers can stream a wide range of movies and web series by subscribing into the platform on monthly and yearly basis. Movies or web shows can also be downloaded by them for viewing it without internet.

1.1.4 Advertising
In the year, 2020, Netflix launched a campaign known as “April Feels Day”. On 1st April, the firm launched this campaign and the objective of this campaign was to spare fools of the world and spread warmth by binge watching emotional content in the platform (Sharma, 2020). Another important campaign was launched by Netflix and it has been named “Wanna talk about it”. The company collaborated with Instagram and big stars whose movies and web shows are streaming online used to come live in the Netflix’s Instagram page and discussed about mental health conditions with people during the global pandemic.

1.2 Market Analysis
1.2.1 Consumer attitudes & behaviors
Customers are the most important stakeholder of a firm because an organization primarily incurs revenue from its customers. Thus, it is the primary responsibility of the members of an organization to satisfy the needs and demands of the customers. High rate of customer satisfaction not only optimizes the financial performance of the firm but it also helps in adding value to the firm (Martins and Riyanto, 2020).There is no exception in case of Netflix. A huge section of customers of Netflix think that this network brand is indispensable. The organization is currently committed towards personalization and this is having an impact on the customer experience of the firm. Customers are highly satisfied with this process of streaming. They do not have to go to movie theatres for watching movies. This is one of the major reasons the company is witnessing almost 6 million new subscribers in one year and it is estimated that the organization is almost witnessing 10% increase in the rate of subscribers every year (WBR Insights, 2022). With the increase in personalization the purchase decision of customers is also changing and the entertainment industry has witnessed a shift in the consumption pattern of consumers after the introduction of Netflix.

Source: Statista, 2019
From the above image it can be found that Netflix have strong brand loyalty. Even if the rate of subscription has increased but still consumers are loyal and are sticking to this firm.

1.2.2 Competition
The current business environment has become very competitive in nature. Each and every organizations across the world are facing intense competition. There is no exception in case of Netflix. Amazon prime video, Youtube, Paramount are the primary competitors of Netflix. To gain competitive advantage, the corporate leaders of Netflix are constantly developing unique strategies and increase the market share in the global market. The organization is diversifying its portfolio of services to survive in the global market. The revenue of this organization has grown from 1.36 billion to almost 25 billion in just 12 years (Statista, 2021). The following image shows the position of Netflix in the global online streaming platform industry.

Source: Lee, 2021.

1.3 Digital Visual Board
The following image shows past campaigns of Netflix. The objective of this visual representation is to show how the marketers of Netflix have focused on following its values while launching any kind of campaign. The organization has always focused on keeping people over their process. Their campaign also intends to do the same.Images were selected from Google search.The following visual board shows the campaign where Netflix supported various crew members who lost their jobs during the pandemic (Sandberg, 2020). The other image reveals that people can access Netflix from anywhere and any place. The global presence of Netflix has been shown in the second campaign (Netflix, 2022c).The final image is an innovative campaign that shows that Netflix is declaring the spoilers of their own show. The main objective behind launching such campaign is to increase the curiosity of the people who are watching the show and forcing them to stay at home during the pandemic (Berg, 2020). This can be marked as Netflix’s own way of undertaking societal responsibilities.The campaign can inspire the creative team of any organization because the marketers of Netflix have made sure to use the core values and philosophy of the company while formulating and launching campaign.

Source: Author made

2. Recommendations
2.1 Objectives
Netflix should focus on adapting hybrid working. This can be done by ensuring coordination among the team members with the help of several digital platforms. Managers should emphasize on consistencies while making any kind of decisions. Campaigns of other competitors should be looked while launching any kind of campaigns.

2.1.1 Campaign objectives
Campaigning or advertising are marked as one of the important activities within an organization because it enhances the reach of the product/service among a greater number of consumers. Customers are currently exposed to fragmented array of marketing and sales (Nichols, 2013). Thus, to enhance the reach of the service of Netflix and to gain competitive advantage, the marketers of Netflix should focus on adopting effective campaigning strategies. It has been seen that the social media marketers of Netflix tend to post more video contents. Thus, it is highly recommended to the marketers of the organization to focus on brand awareness campaigns. Initiating contests in various social media platforms can attract large number of customers. It is also recommended to the company to frequently post poster images of upcoming releases in its social media pages like Amazon prime video. Moreover, the marketers of the organization should also focus on targeting people who belong to generation X while making any campaigns.

2.1.2 Brand communication objectives
• To increase the rate of subscription between the age group of 25-30 in the next 5 years.
• To increase the rate of mobile users in the coming 5 years.
• To add value to the customers with the help of service offerings.

2.1.3 Financial objectives
Optimization of financial revenue within an organization is the most important objective because it helps in the growth of the firm. There is no exception in case of Netflix.
To increase the total revenue by 10% in the next 5 years.
To increase the percentage of sales by the next 5 years.
To increase the percentage of return on marketing investment.

2.2 Selection of target audience and persona
Audiences are the primary source of revenue for Netflix. Target audience for an organization by ensuring communication between the organizational members and the consumers. Marketing maximization should be ensured in order to select target audience (Lo, Mei and Liew, 2013). It is also recommended to the marketing team of the organization to strategically target audiences mainly on the basis of their persona. It is found that the targeted audience of Netflix are millennials whose income are less than $50,000 a year (Canales, 2021). Thus, to increase the revenue of the firm, the organization should also target audiences who belong to generation X. This can be done by including classic and old movies and web shows in the platforms. Furthermore, since Netflix is known for providing subscription-based services therefore, the organization should focus on targeting audiences who intend to take premium services rather than normal or usual services. Finally, audiences who are intrigued towards wide range of global content should also be highly targeted by the marketers of Netflix.

Personality of an individual must be taken into consideration while selecting an audience. Marketers tend to observe the common personality of their customers. It is further used to target prospects in the coming time. The following table depicts a type of personality that can become an active and loyal customer of Netflix.

Monica is a 26-year-old girl who has completed her MBA degree and is currently working in an MNC. Monica is intrigued towards learning wide range of global culture and she tries to learn this culture by watching web series and movies of different countries. Since, she is working in an MNC, she rarely gets time to visit movie theatres for watching newly released movie. Moreover, in her college days she used to visit theatres with her friend. Thus, Monica can be marked as movie buff. She wants to watch movies in week days at the comfort of her house.Furthermore, Netflix offers a wide range of content to its audience, she is prepared to pay for quality content.

2.3 Creative proposals
2.3.1 Proposition & support
In May, 2020, Netflix launched a campaign named “You will work in this Town again”. The pandemic has resulted to shut down of production houses. This has resulted to increase in unemployment in the showbiz industry. Workers working in movie sets have lost their job and their mental state has got affected in a negative way. The objective of this campaign was to gather fund for these workers and support them during these difficult times. The organization reported to have set up a fund of almost $150 million and this money aimed at showing support to the crew members who work behind the camera in a film or web series set (Martech series, 2021).Thus, this campaign can be linked with the core values and philosophy of Netflix. As mentioned earlier, the core philosophy of Netflix is “people over process”. Since, the campaign focuses on helping or supporting crew members instead of optimization of profit therefore, it can be said that the campaign of the organization has a solid link with the core value and culture of Netflix. On the other hand, if the targeted audience of the organization is looked at it can be said that the campaign has limited link with them. Thus, it is highly recommended to the marketers of the organization to focus on forming campaigns that not only portrays the social responsibility of the firm but also drag the interest of the target audience because they are the primary source of revenue for Netflix.

2.3.2 Messages and appeals
While analyzing the advertising strategies adopted by Netflix, it has been found that the brand has already tried its hand on emotional appeal to attract more customers. Thus, currently it is the utmost responsibility of the organizational members of the firm to adopt informational appeals to the target audience. It is recommended to the members of the organization to focus on endorsement appeal. Endorsement appeal is a type of informational appeal. Netflix can sign global artists for campaigns. This can grab the attention of large number of audiences across the world.

2.3.3 Voice tone
It is the responsibility of the marketers of Netflix to have an engaging and inspiring tone while broadcasting the campaign. This can empower and engage a large number of global audiences.

2.3.4 Branding
Branding has become an important responsibility of marketers. Increasing the brand value has gained popularity in recent years. It has been found that marketing ideologies are often getting contradicted with the ideologies of branding strategies (Levy and Luedicke, 2013). Thus, it is the primary responsibility of the marketers to synch marketing ideologies and branding ideologies of the organization. Vivid colors can be used by Netflix to present its logo. Along with the logo a unique tagline can also be presented. This can grab the attention of a greater number of audiences. The logo along with a tagline can also help audiences understand the intention or the value of the firm.

2.3.5 Mandatory inclusions
The marketers of Netflix can focus on font styling while launching any kind of campaign. The features of the service that makes it unique from other online platform can also be mentioned during the campaign to attract more number of spectators from different parts of the world.

2.4 Media proposals
The current business environment has become very competitive. Thus, to survive in the global market it is the utmost responsibility of the organizational members to focus on adopting strategies that can increase the reach of the product/service offering of the organization among a greater number of customers. Thus, it is highly recommended to the organizational members of Netflix to adopt multi-channel strategies for broadcasting the campaigns. Multi-channel marketing strategies are marked as effective because it helps the marketers to achieve marketing goals that are expanded (Kontis and Lagos, 2015). Thus, it is recommended to the marketers of Netflix to broadcast campaigns both in paid television media and also in various social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and many more. Broadcasting campaigns in both the platform can help the organizational members and the senior leaders to attract a large number of audiences irrespective of their background and generation. There is a huge section of people who tend to use social media platforms less. For them television media is the primary source of entertainment. Thus, to attract these types of customers paid television media can be effective.

Table: Paid Television media

Source: Benes, 2021

The above image shows the increase in viewers of HBO in the coming 5 years. Thus, Netflix can increase the reach of the customers

Table: Social media marketing

2.5 Evaluation proposals
Apart from implementation of strategic marketing measures, it is the responsibility of the marketers of Netflix to focus on evaluating the marketing actions undertaken by the marketers. Evaluation helps in measuring the effectiveness of the measures undertaken. Furthermore, the primary goal of evaluation is to optimize the profit generation of the firm.

2.5.1 Impact of campaign advertising
To evaluate the performance of the organization after launching a campaign, it is highly recommended to the organizational team of Netflix to use advertising tracker. Advertising tracker software can help the marketers understand the reach of the product/service after the launch of a campaign. Advertising tracker also helps the marketers understand the process in which campaign have an influence on the changed behavior of an individual (Puglisi, Rebollo-Monedero and Forné, 2016). Ad tracking software tools like Ad-minder, Google ads conversion and many more can be used by the marketers of Netflix to track and evaluate the effectiveness of the ad.

2.5.2 Impact of brand communication
The change in consumer attitudes and behaviors should be understood and evaluated. This can appreciate the effectiveness of the brand campaign. It is recommended to the organizational members of Netflix to focus on consumer tracking. Sensitive information of consumers can be tracked by the marketers if effective consumer tracking is done (D’Annunzio and Russo, 2020). This sensitive information can be further used to understand the perceptions, behaviors and attitudes of consumers. Netflix is one of the fastest growing brands in the US and the brand value of this organization was high than many companies like Jacobs, Taco bell and many more in 2018 to 2019.

Source: Statista, 2019.

Thus, currently the organization should focus on enhancing the awareness of the newly launched product/service offerings by optimizing social media marketing strategies and evaluation of the strategies. Furthermore, to evaluate the brand awareness, the marketers of Netflix can use TV rating statistics.

2.5.3 Payback
Return on marketing investment is an important aspect that needs to be considered by the marketers. Profit optimization is one of the important goals of organizations across the world. Thus, along with marketers it is the responsibility of the finance team of the firm to focus on evaluation of the financial performance of the firm, post launching of the campaign. Increase/decrease in customer base are the results of campaign launch. This not only increases the goodwill of the firm but also helps the firm to grow in the near future. This can be done by determining incremental sales, calculating profit for the incremental sales and many more. The change in the net profit should also be observed and that can be calculated by subtracting marketing expenses from sales.

2.5.4 Discounting factors
The primary objective behind consideration of discounting factors is to understand the stream of payments that can be observed in the coming future. The marketers of Netflix should focus on considering the change in pricing strategies, activities of competitors, promotional activities for making the process of campaigning better.

Reference List
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Canales, K. 2021. Meet the average Netflix user, a Millennial woman without a college degree living in the American suburbs earning less than $50,000 a year. [online]. Available at (Accessed 14 January 2022).

D’Annunzio, A. and Russo, A., 2020. Ad networks and consumer tracking. Management Science, 66(11), pp.5040-5058.
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