Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

Through advertising, businesses find their way out in the world, informing people about their own service and the benefits that come with that service.The Internet advertising cost is moderate and through the Internet is easy to reach a certain target market. However, not everybody has Internet so Netflix needs to expand its advertising services using other media advertising. Being an online service, Netflix most places its advertising on the Internet, through ads in other website; but we can find Netflix's advertising in newspaper, magazine and the service is often mentioned on movies and Tv Shows. Now that Netflix has captured the attention of its target market, and it keeps growing stronger, the use of the advertising is addressed not only to new potential customers, but to its loyal customer, to remind them of the service expansion and new products. 

Netflix's advertising can be considered a comparative advertising since the comparison between its service and Amazon Prime, or Hulu, or Blockbuster is always made. Netflix is mostly chosen not only because its many advantages, but also because it doesn't present movies and Tv Shows with long and boring advertising: the infomercial, that is a very long advertisement that we can compare to a short movie rather than to a sale. For the media mix, Netflix uses mostly two factors: cost per click, meaning the cost associated with a customer that clicks on a display or a banner ad, and frequency, that is the number of times people are exposed to a given message for a specific period.

The publicity is granted not only for commercial and advertising, but also from people that talk about it or share articles and ideas regarding the product. Thanks to the product placement, Netflix is mentioned in movies and Tv Shows, songs and books, increasing the curiosity of new potential customers and the recognition of existing ones.  Finally, Netflix's sales promotion consist in allowing new customers to have a free 30 day trial while exploring the service, and at the end they can decide if keep the subscription or not. For loyal customers besides, the subscription cost remained $7.99 versus the $8.99 new customers need to pay. The increase of the cost may take aback new customers, but with the price higher, Netflix offers a wider choice of content, keeping the price worth it.