brand audit jason gerboth

company profile from the website: Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 93 million members in over 190 countries enjoying more than 125 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments. The company was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. Hastings came up with the idea of a DVD rental company after having to pay $40 in late fees for a rented DVD. Marc Randolph was looking for a concept for a start-up, and the two formed Netflix with 2.5 million dollars and began the online video rentals in 1998. A year later, Netflix offered a monthly flat fee, no late fees or return by dates, and an on-line rental cue. hurt subscriptions and the company quickly dropped the service, offering a streaming only subscription instead. Netflix aggressively pursued content for the online products, with the relatively new service, content providers offered licensing cheap and allowed Netflix to start streaming Disney, Sony and other large studio titles. This, combined with distribution deals with gaming consoles allowed Netflix to be watch on any TV with a Play Station, X-box, and Eventually WII. Netflix initially operated at a net loss for its first two years, and the founders offered to sell to Blockbuster in 2000 for 50 million roughly the value of is losses. The offer was declined, and the company went public instead with an IPO in 2002 that raised almost 95 million, positioning the company with the ability to expand its marketing and competitiveness, and the company posted its first profit the next year. With technology and competitors starting to catch up, Netflix made another move to alter the landscape and keep ahead of the competition by starting to produce original content. With House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and other titles, the company has become a content producer, and is currently promising six billion in new series and film production. As DVD rentals continued to grow, Netflix began its move into streaming video. In 2007, it offered the service to customers while the DVD market began its decline. With the growing of on-line content and the shrinking of DVD rentals, the company went through a re-branding attempt that back fired when it attempted to spin off DVD rentals as a separate service to customers. The backlash Netflix is a brand that people have come to recognize as an on demand alternative to cable or satellite television. Most people who watch on the televisions that now support the service natively, without any additional hardware required, and most recently, Comcast is now offering Netflix integrated with Xfinity platform, with its titles cataloged with Comcast video on demand library.

In the vernacular The brand Netflix has passed into the common vernacular because it has changed the way people watch television. “Netflix and Chill” and “Netflixing” have both passed into common usage.

Demographics Fortune Magazine: Netflix as a brand has been utilizing and developing an algorithm that predicts interest of a viewer. Based on viewing habits, Netflix will present the viewer with content that the algorithm. Based on what is selected, Netflix continues to fine tune the process. Demographically, Netflix groups viewers into clusters based on common interests. Content is then delivered to those interests. The target audience of Netflix and its content spans across demographic boundaries. Anyone with internet access is a potential customer. TV’s consoles, mobile devices and computers. With such broad appeal. The brand should mean something different for each person. When someone says “Netflix,” the meaning is personal based on the content. Fortune Magazine: “There’s a mountain of data that we have at our disposal. That mountain is composed of two things. Garbage is 99 percent of that mountain. Gold is one percent…Geography, age, and gender? We put that in the garbage heap. Where you live is not that important.” Todd Yellin, VP of Product Innovation, Netflix

Brand identity elements: the stack: The Stack is a visual metaphor and an identity system in one. It’s an endless, living catalogue of shows and movies. The stack implies two ideas at the heart of the service: selection and curation. Netflix is both catalogue and curator, calling forth and constantly updating selections custom-tailored to users. As an identity it’s distinctive, clear, infinitely variable and easy-to-use. It can scale to any size and translate to any platform. It works in motion, print, digital and out-of-home. It’s just as effective in Times Square as in Powerpoint. It connects everything the brand touches, internally and externally, and the brand ‘volume’ can easily be turned up and down as needed. The Stack was devloped by Grentel for Netflix and launched in 2015. http://gretelny.com/work/netflix/

Brand identity elements: The stack marries the Netflix brand with its content. It does this by mimicking the algorithm that helps customize the programming. Each card in the stack is connected to the card above, and the card below in a chain that takes the viewer on a journey through Netflix’s offerings.

Brand identity elements: The visual design allows for the concept to function on all different media and is highly customizable to promote different content. https://vimeo.com/140261056 https://vimeo.com/140261017