From ‘Cash Heist’ To ‘Squid Sport’: The Glocal Technique That Retains Netflix Afloat

Cash Heist is probably the most watched Spanish collection of all time because of Netflix, which launched it internationally after buying it from Atresmedia. The final episode premiered in autumn 2021, just a few weeks after the North American firm started broadcasting Squid Sport, the South Korean collection that turned probably the most considered content material on the platform.

These successes are not any coincidence. “It’s not {that a} collection all of a sudden tremendously appeals to folks. It’s the results of a meticulous technique involving suggestions, dubbing, extremely partaking advertising, and serving up the content material in a thousand methods in order that you find yourself watching it.“

That’s the rationalization given by the researcher and member of the GAME group, Elena Neira, a course teacher within the School of Info and Communication Sciences on the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and the co-author of a analysis article revealed this summer time that focuses on Netflix’s “glocal” technique. To place it one other approach, that is the corporate’s dedication to producing and providing non-English-language content material created exterior the US.

Based on the article, collection in languages aside from English accounted for 38% of the collection with probably the most accrued viewing hours on the platform in additional than fifty international locations between June 2021 and December 2022.

The analysis, co-authored with the UOC college members Judith Clares Gavilán and Jordi Sánchez Navarro, focuses on the important thing components within the delocalization of the corporate’s productions at a time when, within the wake of the pandemic bubble, Netflix is the one streaming video platform that isn’t dropping cash.

Based on Neira, who’s a specialist in new audiovisual distribution fashions, Netflix’s glocal technique is a response to the must be extra worthwhile, since manufacturing is less expensive in Spain or South Korea, for instance. This technique additionally reinforces its model picture. On the identical time, it permits it to adjust to the European directive that stipulates that 30% of the content material of catalogues have to be created in Europe.

The three UOC specialists used the info revealed by the corporate on the Netflix High 10 and Netflix TechBlog web sites with the intention to perceive how all this non-English content material is produced and broadcast. This info is just not complete, however in accordance with Neira, Netflix is the platform that gives probably the most info, in an atmosphere during which transparency is conspicuous by its absence: “The platforms are below rising stress to be extra clear, as a result of a lack of know-how results in an abuse of a dominant place.” The researchers additionally interviewed staff on the firm, and used different sources of specialised info.

Huge information and meticulous initiatives

Based on the authors of the article, Netflix has been capable of enhance the success of collection comparable to Cash Heist and Squid Sport thanks, above all, to content material indexing and monitoring customers’ preferences. “Netflix is just not a media firm. It’s a tech firm. Its administration already began storing info and studying issues again when it was a DVD rental firm. After they launched their streaming enterprise in 2007, that they had a substantial amount of info, they usually built-in all these technological features into their work,” Neira mentioned.

In particular phrases, Netflix makes use of its capacity to deal with large information to find out and efficiently classify all of the content material it gives, in addition to its customers’ tastes. Because of this, it gives suggestions geared toward convincing its viewers primarily based on at least eighty thousand microgenres “that develop folks’s factors of contact with the content material,” she defined.

“If Netflix is aware of that you simply don’t like political drama, however you do like empowered ladies, it may advocate you watch Home of Playing cards for the second cause,” she mentioned by the use of an instance. Equally, the platform can advocate non-English-language content material to somebody for a lot of causes, primarily based on their viewing historical past and algorithmic calculations, no matter the place that content material has been produced. “It’s like creating revolving doorways, during which every individual connects with completely different features of the content material. And that applies to each US and native content material,” she concluded.

Moreover, the success of Netflix’s glocal technique can be as a result of a collection of very meticulous initiatives, on each a world and native scale, to hold out initiatives, classify audiences and encourage folks to speak about its content material.

Strengths and weaknesses

“The energy of this glocal technique is that it has eliminated the boundaries that used to exist available in the market and which made it very tough to purchase overseas merchandise,” mentioned Neira, who supplied the instance of the corporate’s manufacturing centre in Madrid, which has change into the most important Netflix manufacturing hub in Europe, and has created many roles.

Nevertheless, she identified that employment by the platforms is creating job insecurity, and its sustainability is unsure: “The filming takes place in a short time. We’re producing hours and hours of content material that has a really brief shelf life. Content material is more and more short-lived, and that leaves an financial, private and environmental footprint.“

Any such audiovisual manufacturing and consumption additionally tends to homogenize content material, and thereby diminishes the character of what we used to name European cinema. “We’re producing so much right here in Spain, however finally, we’re producing content material right here with distinctive options that aren’t European within the strict sense of the phrase,” she mentioned.

Neira additionally highlighted what has been termed cultural conformism: “The energetic search threshold is lowered significantly. I at all times inform those who once they determine to observe one thing on Netflix, they shouldn’t determine what they’re going to observe in Netflix itself, however as a substitute discover out about issues first, away from the platform.“

In any occasion, these will not be placid occasions for streaming firms. Netflix is the one one that isn’t dropping cash, but it surely has introduced decrease ranges of funding for this yr. Neira’s prediction is that “the important thing to the longer term lies in trying on the previous, attempting to make the content material extra sustainable and longer-lasting.” In the meantime, December sees the premiere of Berlin, the long-awaited prequel to Cash Heist.