We now know when Netflix is launching, but what can we expect from the Australian launch?
Netflix has been powering through Europe this year launching in six countries, kicking off in France, and the same pattern is likely to follow here.
So far it has invested heavily in marketing for launches spending US$112 million. It took a $50 million hit to the bottom line from its marketing and local content spend in the UK and the Netherlands for the six months ending 30 June.
Netflix has indicated a preference to take its advertising and marketing in-house, with an appetite for programmatic buying in vogue.
Netflix's senior director of programmatic buying Kathy O'Dowd is currently in Australia talking to media and buyers about advertising schedules but her preference is towards in-house teams leads to speculation it will seek to bring a local office with it to handle marketing.
O'Dowd told Beet.TV in September that Netflix was bringing more and more buying in house.
“We're embracing it full-on,” she said. “We're still interested in DR [direct response], but Netflix is investing heavily into programmatic to make sure we're doing more brand work in that regard.”
She added that Netflix's social lead, premium partnerships lead, and branding team worked out of the same building that this allowed it to identify buying opportunities on the fly, allowing Netflix “to do more interesting things”.
“As we bring more in-house we want to find the balance between those big bets that an agency will probably still do, some of the easily monetised TV space – they'll keep that,” O'Dowd said.
“But for everything else we want to play more of a role and we want to be more data-centric in the kind of buying we're doing in TV.”
While it is still unclear what kind of local team Netflix plans to set on on the ground, it's likely to be exploring its options.
It is rumoured to have handed creative duties to Droga5, although CEO Sudeep Gohill wouldn't be drawn on any involvement today.
MEC CEO Peter Vogel has also made initial enquiries on behalf of its US sister office which holds the media account, but it has not formally landed the account in this market. If the bulk of the launch activity is to be in-house programmatic, rather than mainstream media buys, there may not be a role for a media buying partner immediately.
The service will compete with local services Stan from StreamCo, Foxtel's Presto and some have previously commented that Netflix will struggle in the local market because it doesn't have local rights for much of the content it serves elsewhere.
Original Netflix series House of Cards and Orange is the new black were conspicuous in their absence from the launch content line up. Read more about the launch here.
For more news:
Netflix denies competition behind slowing numbers
PlayStation stakes claim in IPTV market
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