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TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 11, 2014
A Modern Marketing Showdown On TheSmall Screen: HBO vs. Netflix
BRAND STRATEGY COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
There are few things we welcome into our home with such willful abandon
as television. That’s because we don’t just watch television anymore. We
binge watch.
A recent survey by Harris Poll on behalf of Comcast showed that 82% of
U.S. adults say they binge-watch television. (The survey conductors
defined binge-watching as “watching two or more TV episodes of the
same show in one sitting.” Amateurs.)
Kara Burney
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In fact, TrackMaven’s own home base, Washington D.C., tied with Dallas
and San Francisco for the title of “bingey-est city,” with 88% of adults
admitting to bouts of binge-watching.
But unlike other binges, of which we might want to stay mum (drinking,
eating, shopping…), television binges seem to warrant proclamations on
social media, much to the delight of entertainment companies and their
marketing teams.
Google Trends shows that the search term “binge drink” is losing interest
over time, while “binge watch” and “binge eat” are on the rise, which most
of us can attest to personally – binge watching and binge eating are
notorious bedfellows.
While marketers in the entertainment business used to rely on genre
comparisons, focus groups, and early audience feedback to fine-tune
their marketing efforts, social networks act as massive, dynamic focus
groups ripe for data mining.
Ratings may tell us how many people are tuning in to watch a show, but
online buzz offers us a look at how much we are buying into a show. Are
we talking about it? Are we quoting it? Are we creating sub-cultures
around it? Those are the questions proactive marketers are paying
attention to online, and they’re tailoring their digital content strategies
with real-time responses to address our level and means of cultural buy-in
to their programming.
In terms of online fanfare, two of the most buzz-inducing television
premieres so far this year were Netflix’s Season 2 premiere of its political
thriller House of Cards, and HBO’s Season 4 premiere of its fantasy
juggernaut, Game of Thrones.
So, we surveyed the most engaging social media posts each company
has produced over the past year and found a few trends and tactics within
their respective marketing strategies that could benefit marketers from
any industry.
Netflix’s Nostalgic Marketing
Netflix’s social media strategy thrives on nostalgia with pointed appeals
to our collective cinematic memory. While you might guess that Netlflix’s
social media post with the highest engagement over the last year would
center around its hallmark, Emmy-nominated series, House of Cards, well,
you’d be wrong.
The post that garnered Netflix’s greatest Facebook triumph featured a
character much more disturbing than the scheming Frank Underwood –
Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
It seems Frank may have finally met his match. Netflix’s “Hello Clarice”
post garnered nearly 20 times as many social interactions compared to
Netflix’s average Facebook post. Netflix’s “House of Cards 2.14.14” post,
below, was slightly less viral with 13 times the average social interaction.
(It wasn’t necessarily a fair fight. With a lifetime gross of over $130M since
its 1991 release, Silence of the Lambs has a significant head-start for
cultural inertia.)
Netflix saw another spike of engagement by appealing to one of our
seasonal soft spots – the holidays. Sure, it was only September when
Netflix posted this announcement that Love Actually was available for
streaming, but with 447 shares, clearly love was all around us.
Netflix’s nostalgia strategy isn’t reserved for Facebook alone – it works
just as well on Twitter. Netflix’s #NowOnNetflix Mean Girls announcement
raked in 4.6K retweets, 15 times as many as their average.
But Netflix’s social media strategy is much more than simply pandering to
pop culture references. The company has mastered tactics that are the
calling card of any proactive marketer – analytics-driven audience
segmentation.
Netflix’s crown jewel is data – namely, the more than 5 billion content
ratings gathered from customers since the company’s 1998 launch. Using
this wealth of customer data, Netflix’s proprietary algorithm can predict
audience demographics for the content in its filmography and zero in on
overlap in audience taste profiles.
For House of Cards, for example, its success was based on a perfect
storm of diehard David Fincher fans, diehard Kevin Spacey fans, and
lovers of political dramas.
Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos, put it this way:
“What we can do better than anybody else is determine the“What we can do better than anybody else is determine the
potential audience size for these different projects. We look atpotential audience size for these different projects. We look at
our database of users, both from DVD and the streaming side.our database of users, both from DVD and the streaming side.
We look at how users rate shows and movies. But otherWe look at how users rate shows and movies. But other
feedback is more implicit because they may not issue a ratingfeedback is more implicit because they may not issue a rating
and tell us how they felt but we’re able to surmise that if theyand tell us how they felt but we’re able to surmise that if they
watched the whole series in a 24-hour period, they probablywatched the whole series in a 24-hour period, they probably
liked it. For original programming, what we’re most interested inliked it. For original programming, what we’re most interested in
is the overlaps [in taste] — that’s how we best analyze potentialis the overlaps [in taste] — that’s how we best analyze potential
audience.”audience.”
And it’s working. Netflix has attracted a slew of other mold-breakers to its
slate, from Ricky Gervais to the Wachowski Brothers (of The Matrix and
Cloud Atlas fame). Keep an eye on the company’s upcoming slate to see
how they utilize their data to create and market original content that
strategically targets overlapping niche audience preferences.
HBO’s Character-Driven Marketing
The film industry’s content strategy used to be centered around the
gospel of the “four-quadrant film”. Studios evaluated projects based on
their believed ability to appeal to these four main categories: men under
25, older men, women under 25, and older women.
But as our Home Box Office, HBO broke from the mold of four-quadrant
analysis and blazed a trail for premium television programming that was
relevant to our culture, not our demographics. Just think back to the 1999
pilot episode of The Sopranos, which introduced us to a modern mobster
struggling with his empire – and his anxiety.
Looking at HBO’s digital content with the greatest engagement over the
past year, the network has amplified that cultural relevance in its social
media presence. HBO encourages its programs’ adoption into the cultural
lexicon, highlighting highly-quotable lines and images from each episode.
With Game of Thrones, for example, HBO has addressed audience
segmentation in its marketing strategy by harnessing the power of its
ensemble cast, appealing to the sub-cultures surrounding each character.
Khaleesi, of course, is clearly a fan favorite and four-quadrant character,
appealing to people of all genders and ages, so –unsurprisingly – she is
featured in many of HBO’s most popular social media posts:
However, HBO doesn’t simply market down the Mother of Dragons
middle. The company undertands that the cultural relevance of their
programming comes from the power of ensemble casts that offer
something – or someone – for everyone.
After last Sunday’s Season 4 Game of Thrones premiere episode, for
example, Arya and the Hound fought their way into viewers’ hearts, and
HBO saw better-than-average engagement by individually highlighting
their character arcs.
Game of Thrones is epic and fantastical, but we each have a particular
character or two we especially hope to see each episode. HBO has seen
above-average interaction on their social networks by sharing content
that stokes the repetition of memorable quotes and spurs the adoration of
the fan base for each individual character, rather than simply promoting
the show at large.
As a creative content marketer, HBO has also found a unique way to
appeal to the fan bases for past shows and characters on social media:
celebrating the birthdays of their shows’ star actors.
This tactic is essentially a free version of native advertising; amongst all
the birthday Facebook posts for your friends, there is a birthday post for
your favorite television character.
And HBO’s character-centric social media content hasn’t gone unnoticed
by Netflix. Just last week, Netflix earned a spike in audience engagement
with this taunting tweet, featuring Frank Underwood on the Iron Throne:
Strategically timed less than 5 minutes before the Game of Thrones
Season 4 premiere, the tweet earned 32 times as many retweets as
Netflix’s average.
So, if you tune in for the next episode of Game of Thrones this weekend,
don’t just watch the battle for the Seven Kingdoms — watch for the
brewing battle of clever digital marketing tactics between our television
tastemakers. You may just notice a few interactive marketing strategies
worth adding to your own marketing playbook.
If you liked this post, you might like ourIf you liked this post, you might like our MARKETING MAVEN’S MARKETING MAVEN’S
GUIDE TO FACEBOOKGUIDE TO FACEBOOK for insights into the best times to post and for insights into the best times to post and
best practices for word count, Calls-to-Action, punctuation, andbest practices for word count, Calls-to-Action, punctuation, and
more.more.
AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS DIGITAL MARKETING GAME OF THRONES HOUSE OF CARDS INTERACTIVE
MARKETING PROACTIVE MARKETING
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