The Menendez brothers, the subject of Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, are having a moment. From steamy edits of the actor who plays Lyle Menendez to Kim Kardashian publicly supporting the real Menendez brothers’s bid for resentencing and California Governor Gavin Newsom considering their clemency petition, they’re everywhere.
Could Netflix’s new tool, Moments, drive further conversation around the show?
The new feature, which Netflix announced late last month, allows viewers to clip scenes from Netflix shows and share them on social media platforms. Viewers can tap Moments on their screens to save a clip to their My Netflix tab.
Moments is the latest effort from Netflix to boost fan-driven marketing as it looks to drive awareness of its titles and continue growing its subscriber base.
“It’s just one more way that Netflix can have a role in conversations that are happening online and offline,” Ashley Shaffer, CMO of Stagwell’s Redscout, said.
Join the party: Netflix isn’t the only streamer that has tried to make its content more shareable. Paramount briefly put the original version of Mean Girls on TikTok in 23 parts last year, and NBCU uploaded an episode of the Peacock show Killing It in five parts on the platform last year.
Shaffer said the tool can help support community cross-promotion of Netflix shows. “Even in streaming, there’s still appointment viewing, meaning we’re all going home to watch something,” she said. “We just don’t know what everyone else is watching. There’s not an easy way to spy on your friends’ and your neighbors’ viewing behavior. [Moments] is a way for people to say, ‘This is what I’m into.’”
Shaffer compared Moments to NBC’s Saturday Night Live, which posts skits from the program on YouTube after each week’s episode airs. The SNL clips are easy to share in people’s feeds and are “made for conversation,” she said, because not everyone is watching SNL on Saturday nights, when it airs live.
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Netflix in the past hasn’t allowed clip-sharing, and viewers have sometimes resorted to finding surreptitious ways to screen record in order to grab content. Even with Moments, though, screenshots are still not allowed.
Moments is the latest example of Netflix capitalizing on fandom. In June, it announced an experiential marketing venture called Netflix House. The permanent retail installations, set to open in malls in Pennsylvania and Dallas, Texas, next year, are set to include consumer experiences tied to Netflix content like Bridgerton and Stranger Things. Netflix also debuted the real-life Squid Game: The Experience in New York last month; people can compete in games, some of which are similar to those featured in Squid Game.
“Netflix has put such a big effort into driving conversation around its titles and talent, meaning giving fans these really beloved, bespoke events around the shows that they love,” Shaffer said. “I see this as a compliment to that: a digital way for fans to mimic the fan behavior that already exists.”
Rave about it: As Moments rolled out, Netflix also debuted a new celebrity-filled global brand campaign called “It’s So Good.” In a minute-long spot, Netflix shows celebrities like Simone Biles and actor Giancarlo Esposito raving about moments in Netflix shows they’ve enjoyed. It also features other people in a variety of social situations talking excitedly about Netflix content they’re passionate about.
Shaffer told us she thinks Moments could help support the brand campaign’s message.
“The campaign did a good job of acknowledging that human truth that we all want someone to talk to about the things that we love watching, and on Netflix, it can be especially challenging given that there’s just so much content,” she said. “I really saw it as a campaign to kind of acknowledge that truth, and then the feature was a great way to support that truth.”