Inside Netflix’s viral ‘Wednesday' marketing strategy

In the span of just one month, Netflix’s “Wednesday” crept remarkably close to the landmark achievements of the streamer’s darling “Stranger Things,” which spent six years building a rabid fanbase, accumulating massive viewership success and ultimately becoming a viral hit. “Wednesday,” which premiered Nov. 23, quickly climbed Netflix’s rankings to become its second most-watched English-language show, amassing 1.19 billion hours of viewing among 176 million households in its first 28 days (compared to 1.35 billion hours for the most recent season of “Stranger Things” during the same period) according to Netflix. The show’s rapid success is in part due to Netflix’s marketing team, which bet big on the pig-tailed terror from the jump. “In some cases and in other shows, maybe we’d say, ‘Oh, we didn’t see it coming,’” Marian Lee, chief marketing officer at Netflix, told Ad Age. “But we knew this one was going to be special from the start.” While “The Addams Family” first appeared on TV screens in 1964—Lee noted nostalgia was a key tool for Netflix’s marketing—the rapid growth of Netflix’s spin-off, which centers on the Addams’ daughter who attends a fantastical school, is emblematic of the very modern ways the streamer promotes its properties—social media virality, immersive fan interactions and stunt marketing. Ad Age Year in Review 2022 The year's biggest news, trends and takeaways Click here Fan engagement, but make it macabre Lee said that Netflix’s “Wednesday” marketing team started creating work for the series over a year ago, while the production was shooting in Romania (the show is set in Jericho, Vermont). The mantra was “what would Wednesday do,” which inspired a social media presence in the voice of Wednesday Addams. The “Wednesday” Twitter account, which has over 220,000 followers as of writing, has been a consistent point of fan interaction for the show, a trend evolved from the success of brand mascot accounts to those representing specific characters, such as for Paramount Pictures’ promotion of the revived “Scream” film franchise. The “Wednesday” account allows the macabre schoolgirl to comment on trending pop culture events, including the Emmy Awards, as well as share short videos that the marketing team filmed with star Jenna Ortega. Netflix declined to comment on how Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter has impacted its social strategy for "Wednesday" and other marketing. A word of advice for tonight’s #Emmys nominees: pic.twitter.com/Ef2IL0rFlO— Wednesday Addams (@wednesdayaddams) September 12, 2022 The “Wednesday” team also tapped the lead cast of the show to create a recruitment video for the show’s fictional Nevermore Academy. Featuring Gwendoline Christie (Principal Weems), Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair), Joy Sunday (Bianca Barclay), Naomi J. Ogawa (Yoko Tanaka), Percy Hynes White (Xavier Thorpe) and Moosa Mostafa (Eugene Ottinger), the video pointed superfans to an enrollment site for the school for outcasts. Select fans were sent acceptance letters via mail with Nevermore apparel. Lee said the marketing team strategized around events that coincided with the show’s premiere to expand Wednesday and friends’ voices beyond fan-specific interaction. For Thanksgiving travelers, custom TSA bins at airports featured Addams’ portrait with the message, “No sharp objects? What a shame.” And a custom spot showed the character condemning Black Friday’s exploitation of her favorite color for a “pathetic marketing ploy.” Wednesday’s dismembered-hand sidekick Thing also ventured around the world to promote the show to unsuspecting passersby. A video of Thing taking in the sights of New York City’s Washington Square Park, eliciting shrieks from children and adults alike as it crawled through food truck windows, skateboarded through a flock of pigeons and won a game of chess, amassed over 50 million views across Netflix’s social channels. The hand also made an appearance, wearing a beret, at the red carpet premiere of the third season of “Emily in Paris,” an example of how Netflix is cross-promoting its shows. Going viral in a snap But Lee said the Netflix marketing teams are always ready for surprises, which often come from fans. The hashtag “Wednesday” has gained over 25 billion views on TikTok as of writing. A clip of Wednesday Addams performing a bizarre dance routine at a school dance inspired TikTokers to replicate the sequence, but not to the show’s soundtrack (“Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps). The social trend instead took off to the sound of Lady Gaga’s 2011 song “Bloody Mary,” which isn’t part of the “Wednesday” soundtrack. Lee describes her team as “a swarm of bees—they can move to where the conversation is and start amplifying there.” “That is the beauty of marketing at Netflix,” said Lee. “We have 80% of our plans totally set and then we leave space for us to react to what the fans are doing, and then we can swarm all over it.” Since being linked to “Wednesday,” Gaga’s song has taken off in a similar vein to the revival of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” after it was used in “Stranger Things.” “Bloody Mary,” which wasn’t originally a single on Gaga’s album “Born This Way,” entered the Billboard Global Top 200 chart for the first time, exploding 509% in on-demand global streams and over 1100% in sales during the show’s first week on Netflix, according to Billboard. One sped-up remix of “Bloody Mary” is the soundtrack for 2.5 million videos on TikTok. @ladygaga BLOODY WEDNESDAY #fyp ♬ original sound - heyy “We couldn't have predicted that,” said Lee. “We knew the dance would be big, but those early signals obviously help our team to really push momentum towards TikTok…because that's where the fandom is. They’re largely celebrating ‘Wednesday’ on TikTok and it’s not a blanket approach for all of our shows—that’s not the case for some of them.” A fascinating contrast is “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which enjoyed a brief stint as Netflix’s No. 2 most-watched English-language show before being surpassed by “Wednesday.” The story of one of America’s most notorious serial killers, starring Evan Peters, also enjoyed virality on TikTok as fans lip-synched to lines from the show in irreverent situations. But “Dahmer” wasn’t a show that Lee and her team could chase with immersive activations and in-character social accounts (for obvious reasons). “We knew [‘Dahmer’] was going to be really big, but also is a darker subject matter,” said Lee. “‘Wednesday’ is a little more fun, but edgy, and ‘Dahmer’ is definitely deeper and darker. And so, we have to approach things in a more customized way, and particularly with ‘Dahmer,’ in a very sensitive way.” @melandphil The gram eats first 🙃 #eatingout #datenight #instagram #influencersinthewild #foodblogger #influencersbelike #relationshipproblems #relationshiphumor #jeffreydahmer #relaxijustwannatakesomepictures #relationshipmemes #couplecomedy ♬ original sound - Heather 🍯 Although “Wednesday” may appear to have reached cultural saturation, Lee said Netflix’s marketing with the show isn’t finished yet, as the streamer looks to maintain its momentum. “Maybe all the young people have watched it, but their parents haven’t and you can bring in a different audience—and certainly, I look at countries where ‘Wednesday’ is just beginning to pop,” said Lee. Now that the show is a hit, “the campaign definitely shifts and that’s when it gets really fun and we can then think about like, how can we do more things with Lady Gaga?”

Inside Netflix’s viral ‘Wednesday' marketing strategy

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