Netflix: driving awareness and attendance for a Melbourne pop-up

A pop-up has a fixed address and a short life. Netflix had made the investment in the Who’s Watch Inn, a Netflix & Chill themed pub in Melbourne, Netflix had built the Who’s Watch Inn, a Netflix & Chill themed pub in Melbourne. The job was to get enough of the right people through the door while it was open. Knowing a pub exists is a long way from planning to go.

Time Out, ELLE, Boss Hunting and Urban List each described a different pub

Rather than rely on paid channels alone, we engaged four lifestyle publishers, so the pub reached readers as a recommendation from a title they already read. The work ran in two phases. Before and during the launch, publishers ran long form articles, teaser videos and social posts, in a tone built to make a reader think, “I can’t believe Netflix is doing that.” After the launch it turned social first, with video and storytelling drawn from what people were posting, so the pub kept its hold on audiences who could not get there.

• Time Out had the insider read for Melbourne’s culture seeking crowd.
• Boss Hunting took the cool factor of the activation to premium, experience loving audiences.
• ELLE came at it through culture and design, which widened the interest to a stylish, female skewed readership.
• Urban List Urban List ran Instagram reels for readers to share.

Between them they reached pub lovers and foodies, Netflix and streaming fans, and pop culture lovers. Each publisher wrote for its own audience and picked its own format, from editorial explainers to Instagram reels, which is why the same pub could carry cultural credibility and reach at once.

Readers tagged friends and made weekend plans in the comments

Publishers saw spikes in social engagement, in comments, shares and tags, as readers invited friends along or looked back on the activation. For a pop-up with a short window, that is the behaviour that counts. Tagging a friend and naming a weekend is a plan being made, and it happened under publisher content.

Four publishers made the pub something happening in their readers’ city.

Netflix had one address and a narrow window. What moved people was four publishers making the pub feel like something happening in their city, told to readers who chose those publishers themselves. Avid ran all four through a single point of contact, which is the part the agency felt.

Wavemaker’s Group Strategy Director, Claire Riding, said: “In today’s fast-paced environment, the old ways of working simply won’t cut it and Avid is at the forefront of change. We saved significant time and effort working with multiple publishers.”

The figures behind this one are confidential, so there is no performance table to show you. What stands on the record is what an audience did in public.