Netflix claims nearly 5 million users for its offer with advertising

Netflix takes stock of its quest for advertisers. “Six months after our launch, our ad-supported plan has nearly 5 million monthly active users worldwide, with an average age of 34,” Jeremi Gorman, the platform’s president of global advertising, announced on Wednesday during the week ” Upfront” in New York, where channels show advertisers their upcoming programs.

For Netflix, however, the celebration of its entry into the advertising world was a bit spoiled: when Fox Corp or YouTube found all the players in the sector with shows mixing executives and celebrities, Netflix had to settle for a presentation… in line: the screenwriters’ strike threatened to invade the “Paris Theatre” her vintage cinema at the foot of Central Park where she was to present her offer.

A quarter of subscribers

On average, more than a quarter of new subscribers now choose the offer including adver when it is available (in twelve countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and France), indicated the platform. Netflix, which hesitated for a long time before proposing an offer with advertising, has so far not posted an official objective, but the “Wall Street Journal” had unveiled a note last year evoking the ambition to have 40 million users of this offer at the end of 2023.

Netflix had some 233 million subscribers worldwide at the end of March, often with several users per account. “We are just starting,” Jeremi Gorman cautiously recalled, noting that the first few months also served to guarantee the technical quality of advertising insertions and targeting.

“The Netflix Effect”

The platform wanted above all to convince, on Wednesday, of its added value. She praised the “Netflix effect” for a long time, when a song by Kate Bush (“Running up that hill”) has a second youth world (thanks to the series Stranger Things), or when Formula 1 takes advantage of the documentary behind the scenes (“Drive to survive”). The Netflix brand is already powerful and selective, and it intends to demonstrate that its programs will be more effective than the competition in reaching an audience.

“Although we are in our infancy, we have found that viewers are four times more likely to react to an advertit on Netflix than on other streaming platforms,” ured Peter Naylor, in charge of worldwide advertising sales. Over the next few months, it is banking on a mix of new seasons of its flagship series (Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The Crown, etc.), reality TV (Love is Blind, Squid Game: the challenge, etc.) and films to maintain the ‘interest.

If she advances step by step in an advertising universe that it still knows little about, Netflix also wants to sell advertisers on its ability to innovate, recalling what it has disrupted in the universe of series – from “binge-watching” to the possibility of skipping introductions.Wednesday, Peter Naylor thus proposed to brands seeking a global audience to place their spots on the permanent Top 10 of the ten most viewed films and series, or to appear next to the title of a series or a successful film – for example “Emily in Paris” by Hilton.

Last month, for example, Netflix signed a partnership with Lacoste to create a collection evoking several of the platform’s flagship series. “Imagine a 30-minute ad that would take place over several days,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos also launched on Wednesday. “And if you stop a program to watch something else, it will follow you”.