Netflix may be canning at least 15 people from its marketing department amid a shift in its marketing goals. According to sources from THR, the streaming giant is shifting focus away from promoting individual series and more putting a focus on the service as a whole. With the competition as stiff as it is with platforms such as Disney-owned services Hulu and Disney+, HBO Max, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, Funimation Now, and various other smaller services, it’s no surprise they need to stand out.
Netflix was a major player back in the day, it was huge and before other companies jumped on the bandwagon, it didn’t need to advertise the platform itself. They just needed to slap together a trailer for a series on the platform and they were good to go. But, with competition showing up left and right, it couldn’t hurt to divert its marketing budget to market the platform. That said, they are still going to promote individual series, but they’ll be pickier.
A major part of this change stems from its new chief marketing officer, Jackie Lee-Joe, which hailed from BBC Studios and joined Netflix in July. Reportedly, she believes Netflix has too many staffers in the marketing department.
The report follows Netflix’s recent quarterly report which showed an odd trend for the service. Global subscriptions did see a 20 percent growth, but it also saw slower growth in the US. According to Netflix’s 2019’s fourth-quarter report, the service saw a meager 550 thousand or so new subscriptions.
Netflix will have to think twice before spending an exorbitant amount on licenses and other content expenses. The company also throws as much as $15 billion into its content budget following international programming success.
