Back to All NewsNetflix 2023 Upfront: Building a Forever Business
Business
17 May 2023
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Our ads offering is just six months old, and while we have much more to do, we're making steady progress. Like everything at Netflix, it all starts with our members and the breadth and quality of our programming. Greg Peters, co-CEO, kicked off Netflix's first Upfront today by explaining to advertisers that:
We share a common goal, which is building connection. You want to connect consumers with your amazing brands. And we want to connect them with amazing entertainment they'll love ;
For our members, it all starts with the variety and quality of our TV shows and films. So whatever your taste, whatever mood youre in, whoever you're with - we'll have something great for you to watch. From Emmy-winning dramas to reality TV, stand-up comedy to true crime, Oscar winners to action-adventure, rom-com to horror, we have it all ; and
It's why, despite all the competition out there, Netflix is the most popular streaming service today. To be the one to watch, you need everyone watching. And that's what sets Netflix apart .
In 2022, Netflix viewing across Nielsen's Top 10 most watched lists was three times greater than all our competitors combined - and five times greater than our nearest competitor. This year alone, according to Nielsen, weve had the number one original TV show on streaming in the US for 15 out of 16 weeks - and the number one movie for 14 weeks.
Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer, said this is only possible because Netflix focuses on super serving our audience - giving you something you will really love, that will really satisfy you. To super-serve our members we have to focus on quality, with the understanding that quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Bajaria added that: No other entertainment company aspires to create great movies and shows across so many genres, in so many countries, and for such a broad, diverse audience. We do it by partnering with world-class talent - giving them the freedom and support to tell their best stories. Our partnership with them is the single biggest reason we're able to bring fresh, original storytelling to our members.
New and Returning Series
During its Upfront, Netflix highlighted new upcoming shows including Shawn Levy's All the Light We Cannot See, Griselda with Sof a Vergara and the latest epic from David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem, along with returning favorites like Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Outer Banks, and Cobra Kai. Netflix has more returning series than any other streamer, Bajaria added.
Netflix also announced the return of some of TV's most popular shows with season renewals of Ginny & Georgia (S3 and S4) and Virgin River (S6), which come after recent renewals for The Night Agent (S2) and The Diplomat (S2). On the reality side, Love is Blind (S5) will be back in September, and Squid Game: The Challenge will debut in November. Getting Brilliant at the Basics
Jeremi Gorman, President, Worldwide Advertising, said we are building a forever business and that in the first six months we worked hard to be brilliant at the basics, focusing on areas advertisers told us matter most - like geo, age, and gender targeting; third-party verification and deploying the right brand suitability mechanisms for [advertisers] to make the best decisions for [their] brand. And while we're focusing on reaching parity, we're also innovating. We treat our ads with the same care we treat our incredible content: serving them locally; seamlessly transitioning between shows and ads with no latency; and implementing industry-leading frequency caps with an ad load of four to five minutes per hour.
Gorman also explained that when it comes to engagement, Netflix stands alone. According to Nielsen, Netflix's reach at two or more hours is higher than almost everyone else's reach at a one-minute threshold. Two hours compared to one minute. Thats what sets Netflix apart from other streamers. It's the difference between foundational viewing and simply sampling. And that's why we prefer to talk about metrics that actually matter to advertisers - like monthly active users. Just six months after launch, our ad-supported plan has nearly five million global monthly active users, with a median age of 34 .
New Product and Measurement Solutions
As Peters explained: Since early this year, our ads member base has more than doubled. On average, more than a quarter of our signups now choose the ads plan in countries where its available. Seventy percent of our ad-supported members are between the ages of 18 and 49. He concluded by saying that: The signals are promising: engagement on our ads plan is similar to our comparable non-ads plans. That's critical because it all starts and ends with consumers.
Peter Naylor, Vice President, Global Advertising Sales, announced new product and measurement solutions for Netflix's ad-supported plan, including the ability for brands to connect with our audiences during some of the most watched and most relevant cultural moments of the year. This includes two new sponsorship opportunities to give brands the opportunity to be within the top streaming content anywhere."
Sponsorship: Upfront partners will now be able to:
Sponsor the presentation of some of our most popular series on Netflix at launch. These opportunities will be available first in the US, with other countries to follow; and
Align themselves with meaningful collections on Netflix by featuring their campaigns within local holidays (e.g. Valentine's Day) and key brand moments (e.g. Sustainability Sto
