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A queue of people spills out onto the pavement outside a quaint, blue-fronted café in North London. Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” finds its way back onto the charts after 37 years. Bridgerton-inspired corsets, gloves and empire waisted ball gowns feature heavily on the 2024 Oscars red carpet.
This isn’t a string of unconnected events; it’s the so-called “Netflix effect” in action, and it’s the work of Marian Lee, who was named the streamer’s chief marketing officer in 2022.
When Lee took on the top job, she was the third CMO in three years to take the reins of Netflix’s $2.5 billion advertising budget. Since then she’s shifted its marketing strategy from something platform-centric to one rooted in championing the brand’s individual shows and driving cultural relevance.
As the streaming wars heat up, Netflix isn’t just vying for subscribers across its standard and ad-supported tiers—it’s also vouching for CMO budgets.
To scale both, Lee is investing in building a relationship with the platform’s audience that’s less transactional, more interactive and deeply rooted in culture.
The Wednesday Addams TikTok dance challenge, a live Squid Game experience in Los Angeles, a traveling Bridgeton Ball and billboards for Lupin that played on luxury advertising tropes are just some of the recent campaigns that have played into this circular strategy, which is allowing Netflix to both tap into the zeitgeist and influence it.
“We can connect fans and put them into our stories versus having them as spectators outside,” Lee told ADWEEK.
Ugly crying, dancing and ‘rabid fandom’
The former Spotify exec pointed to the success of One Day, the 14-episode adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2011 best-selling romantic novel that drew in 15.2 million viewers within 10 days of landing on Netflix, as one example of a show that’s transcended the small screen.
After the series’ debut, the book found itself back in the No. 1 spot on the U.K.’s Sunday Times Bestseller list 23 years after its first imprint. Meanwhile, London café La Maison Highbury (which featured in the show for just 10 seconds) spent days trending on TikTok and Instagram as fans flocked there for a flat white.
This hype was amplified by an “ugly crying” craze on TikTok that saw viewers react to some of the series’ most emotional scenes.
