Why is this work relevant for Media?

On the internet, trolling is every fan’s favourite pastime. So when Netflix wanted to take a look back on 2021 and set the stage for the year ahead, we decided to speak their language. We didn’t just flashback to our biggest hits, we trolled them. Bringing plot lines from the real world into ours. From a real life superhero rescuing the kids from Stranger Things, to Bollywood’s favourite gangster playing the big bad in Red Notice, we brought every meme to life and showed our audience that we had plenty of surprises in store for 2022.

Background

The world thought 2021 was going to be a great year but as it turned out, we were all wrong. 2021 was a plot twist no one saw coming. It was also a year no one wanted to look back on. But Netflix did. They wanted to create a year-end showcase of all the incredible content they’d created and take a fun rewind on the year gone by. The key goals of the campaign were to: Drive the Big Conversation Make the News Drive Positive Sentiments for Netflix Become a Pop Culture moment

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

2021 was a year no one asked for, so to close out the year we decided to give our fans everything they’ve ever asked for. By trolling our own biggest hits from the year gone by. Bollywood superstars became Hollywood baddies, real-life heroes became reel-life heroes and reality show stars took over some Netflix real estate. In a year filled with plot twists, we dropped the biggest one of all just as the year came to a close. Letting our viewers know that we always had a surprise in store and a whole year’s worth of plot twists ready to go…in 2022.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Our target audience were users who were aware of Netflix’s content and were actively or had at some point been a user of the platform. This audience was highly engaged with both our content and our platforms, thus providing us the most receptive audience for a 2021 retrospective. We chose to release the film across Netflix’s social handles and owned platforms. We also leveraged the star power and reach of the celebrities and influencers we had in the film by releasing shorter snippets on their individual social media handles. By creating a film that trolled our own content with jokes and context from the year gone by, we created the perfect in-joke, making our audience feel like insiders. Using iconic scenes from Netflix shows and recreating them with influencers and celebrities, we took moments they loved and gave them a brand new spin that was inherently shareable.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We took popular Indian influencers and celebrities, who were instrumental in shaping India's cultural landscape in 2021 and added them into fan favourite, iconic moments of Netflix content in 2021. With state-of-the-art VFX, we sent India’s biggest crypto influencer into the Money Heist bank to deposit a cheque. A reality show superstar, famous for getting ousted from the Bigg Boss house, shared her grievances with the Devil himself. A Bollywood hero, who wanted some chicken in India’s biggest ever Netflix show, got stuck hunting for eggs in Red Notice. And an actor turned saviour, who rescued thousands during India’s Covid 19 lockdown, stepped into the Stranger Things universe to save the children of Hawkins. All to rev up the fandom for Netflix’s unexpected line-up of content for 2022. Timeline: The Playback 2021 video went live across all of Netflix India’s owned channels at 11 am on the 22nd December, 2021

List the results (30% of vote)

The teaser post alone got 51k+ views on YouTube, 570k+ views on Instagram and 12k+ views on Facebook. The main AV of the PlayBack Video got 872k+ views on YouTube, 870k+ views on Instagram and 1.6mn+ views on Facebook. The influencer engagement with only static posts on their respective channels got over 1.28 mn likes across channels and engaged over 36,544 fans. The individual snippets of the videos on the respective artists’ channels got over 16.6 mn views and engaged over 60,768 fans. The campaign drove positive sentiments across platforms and gathered a lot of press coverage from leading publications including Hindustan Times, News18, Indian Express, Times of India, Republic World, Economic Times, etc. Netflix PlayBack Video 2021 became the perfect way to close out the year.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

Netflix India has a very unique relationship with its fans. Especially on social media. There’s constant banter and a great back and forth across our comment section and even in our DMs. We drop memes, they drop more. We make jokes, they give us new punchlines. It’s this relationship between our fans and us that inspired our year end film. After all, everything we post gets trolled in good humour by our most ardent fans. So instead of letting them do the trolling, we decided to troll ourselves, so that they could have the last laugh.