Binge watching movies or series on a streaming platform is hands down the best and most addictive way to spend your free time. After an episode when the screen blacks out and leaves you with a time lapse to the next episode I stare at my reflection and think about that pending to do list of mine , “well one more episode won’t hurt”, that’s a classic gets me all the time, how to get the better out of this. Streaming platforms have great content not just the ghosthunters and rom coms, if we just browse a little more this binging may come with perks.
Marketing refers to the combined efforts to enable sales of goods and services. Marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and offering and exchanging products and services of value with other. Marketer is the person who is responsible in creating involvement between the customer and the product or service.
Here are 5 movies/series which you would find on Netflix and could add to your marketing knowledge:
1.The Social Network
Content accelerates and goes around via a network. We need to market correctly to a defined target market the movie “The Social Network” is an outstanding example for this.
This movie is about Mark Zuckerberg coming up with the idea of Facebook. This tech-savy documentary is paired with college drama and has some genius marketing takeaways. This movie proved once again that all the data is on the internet and is accessible. When marketing a product exclusivity is important that means to focus on the defined target market, for Zuckerberg it was college students (Harvard initially to be precise), it is important to understand what the market needs and solve it through your business, the problem that Facebook tackled was connectivity of students and enabling relations among peers. This movie also emphasised on the fact that we need to spread the word about our business through the right people to the right people, and if the software is appealing it will grow.
2.Creative Brain
Essentially humans started with a wheel to a cartwheel and over the generations of innovation we have the model X from Tesla, while the core purpose remained same. The idea of 4 wheels and some space was put together with innovation, comfort, style and we have a chic model, that’s how creative the human brain can get.
Marketing is about marketing creative products creatively. In the movie “Creative Brain” Dr David Eagleman talks about the brain, its processes and the aspect of creativity along the road of evolution with different artists and field experts. The movie explains why people put thought into doing things that they do or choices that they make and why we imagine things. Imagination of individuals is what businesses try to achieve through their products and services. The movie emphasises on how the things we see have an impact on us only when we connect to them, as in have an emotional thread attached. This is what marketers aim to achieve, they try to connect to the audience and make them drawn to their products.
This movie justifies a lot of marketing practices that already exist by logically reasoning them with processes of the brain and its evolution over time.
3.Girl boss
Rags to riches is the perfect example that one can achieve what they want by putting in loads of effort and working towards it. A girl with big dreams living in the chic city of San Francisco discovering herself and her purpose. This series “Girl Boss” is exactly something which I would cuddle up to to binge during the weekend.
The only thing more captivating than Sophia’s bright blue eyes was her passion for vintage fashion. She had an eye for fashion and decided to upgrade thrift finds and sell them off eBay. This movie comes with a side of marketing tactics. The key takeaway is to know your niche market and what they like. The tagline “Nasty Girl” itself brings out a sense of empowerment, wildness and boldness to the brand which is very appealing. Perhaps one of the most important concept; connect with the customer, build a connection that comes through perfectly with this tagline. Another attractive feature of this movie is authenticity, Sophia’s brand represents exactly who she is and doesn’t cross her at all and that is what a brand should portray. Connecting with the original founders of the brand helps marketers understand the purpose of the brand and portray it to its audience appropriately.
4.Padman
Essential products are easy to market as they mostly come under convenience goods which one wouldn’t neglect, then again the brands, the variety and the different price points make it a difficult choice for the consumer. Marketing an essential product to another customer segment who may not realize its importance is a herculean task, the movie “Padman” had it’s fair attempt here.
Bollywood has produced many classics over time and to not include at least one in this list would be a sin. Padman is one of Akshay Kumar’s most famous movies. It’s main purpose was increasing social awareness with analysis I realized it comes with a ton of marketing lessons. It is based in a village in India and explains how a man struggled to convince women to believe in his product (sanitary pads). This movie is based on the real life experience of Arunachalam Muruganantham. An important tactic to understand is to draw similarity between the marketer and the customer, in the movie when the lady spoke about the menstrual cycle and the importance of using a sanitary napkin the women of the village listened to her, the simple conclusion being women preferred to speak to women about their bodies. Another important takeaway from the movie was pricing tactics, the product which was being promoted existed in the market but its high price made it distant from its consumer market and when Padman sold his product for relatively cheaper prices he gained popularity and preference. The menstrual cycle is considered as a “taboo” topic to even talk about so the marketing tactics had to be even more appealing. This movie also managed to create buzz for social awareness about the topic and has been well accepted.
5.Social Dilemma
Digital marketing is a main and important branch of marketing, very relevant and applicable to this day and age. Most business have an online presence and consider it as a major asset to extend its reach. Having a social media presence is a must but having a good strategy to implement onto your audience is more important. The movie “Social Dilemma” is an extension to the same while raising ethical concerns about the working of the tech industry.
This movie is a documentary drama hybrid narrated by various tech experts who have worked in social media companies from Pinterest to Google and Facebook. This movie did create a lot of fear in the minds of the viewers as to how much they are being watched online, it’s too blurry to draw a line between good marketing strategy and ethical behaviour. However this movie has some good marketing lessons and values for marketers. So it’s not just me a lot of people spend a lot of time on social media hence it is important for businesses to be on every social media platform and have a noticeable presence, this may vary for a few depending on the target market for example elderly people are more likely to use Facebook and Twitter rather than Instagram. The movie surrounds around a teen’s life and the backend analysis of her choices and behaviour this helps marketers understand the human brain what works, and what doesn’t. The movie also sheds light on the importance of ethics in marketing, in our pursuit for success we shouldn’t endanger the mental health and well-being of our fellow humans.
So in conclusion binging can be productive and fun at the same time. We as the Gen Z have access to all the content, everything’s on the web so we need to know what data we want and what we derive out of it. Marketing is a tricky field and may take years to experiment and progress but these tips can help us make the right choice in the long run.
By : Maryianne Thomas (BBA-IT 2020-2023)